


Say you won't Let go

by SouthernLolita



Series: Marvel Omegaverse [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bucky Barnes Feels, Companion Piece, Depression, I Tried, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Loki Feels, M/M, Manipulation, Masturbation, No Grammar Nazi's, Omega Loki, Omega Verse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Psychological Torture, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Torture, WinterFrost - Freeform, lucky - Freeform, please don't be cruel in the comments, sequal to Where we land, thor is a cockblock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-23 13:12:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 30
Words: 64,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8329204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernLolita/pseuds/SouthernLolita
Summary: Across time and space, reaching out through the darkness and pain, sometimes - only if you are very lucky, you will find someone who will never let go.*Sequel to "Where we Land"*





	1. Bookcover

**Author's Note:**

> An: welcome to the Marvel Omegaverse 2nd addition! So if you read “where we land” and you are here for this WinterFrost Story, I thank you. If you haven’t read it that’s ok!  
> The inspiration for this story is the song “Say you won’t let go” by James Arthur, If you haven’t heard it I highly recommend it!

_I met you in the dark...you lit me up, you made me feel as if I was enough...._

_.... then you smiled over your shoulder, for a minuet I was stone cold sober...._

_..... I knew I loved you then, but you'd never know...._

_....I knew I needed you..._

_Say you won't let go?_

 


	2. Prologue: The day we became ghosts  (Loki)

  
Darkness is a word that men use too casually.   
  
There is but one true darkness and not many men have lived long enough to speak of. That word is reserved for a special kind of hell that few have ever experienced, a grief and turmoil that is beyond existence. A unique and all encompassing kind of pain and anguish that wraps around its victim, sinks into the skin, and swims in the blood.   
  
You cannot know true darkness until you have lived with it, until you have curled up within its cold embrace and known its true form. Until you have had, that darkness wakes you and put you into a force uneasy rest. With out that you can never antiquate understanding of the verbal utterance or written context while there is even still a shred of hope or decency in your world.    
  
It is not just a word.  Darkness…shadow, gloom, none of these suit. To think of the term in metaphorical and philosophical terms, then you begin to glimpse the truth.  Darkness… evil, immorality, wicked, sin, - And Despair.   
  
To the once loved omega son of Odin, or perhaps … in more truthful descriptions –son of Laufey; Darkness is encompassed with one word. A word that can a bring a god to his knees.  
  
 **Void.**  
  
The vast womb of creation it self, a pit of nothing yet everything that swallowed him whole. The promise of death in that vast darkness that was just a hairs breath away. All he had to do?   
  
Let go. 

* * *

  
Falling wasn’t so terrible; he thought perhaps he would die. That as the cold and blackness of nowhere sunk into his bones he would simply become one with it. One moment a living breathing thing and then…nothing. His soul was surely too tainted for Valhalla, even Hel would not welcome a monstrous wretch who resorted to such cowardly means. Instead, he thought it would just end. Time would pass and everyone would forget, perhaps they already had.   
  
No, falling wasn’t so terrible. In fact, it was freeing, liberating even. Letting go had been the only truly right thing Loki had ever done. At least, that’s how it felt.  Untwining his fingers and breathing in one last time and just…release.   
  
He couldn’t take back the things he had done and he was too proud to face the sympathetic stares. ‘Poor boy who went mad because he found out he was a monster.’ Worse, the knowing glares of those who would say -‘see, it all makes sense now; he was born evil.’   
  
Loki was not afraid of death, he was afraid of living. Therefore, he opted out. He looked up into his not-fathers eyes and gave it all up. His eyes shining with regret and resignation.   
  
_“I did it for you father.”_  
  
 _“No Loki.”_  
  
The All Father was right, Loki did it for himself. Like a guilty child trying to hide the remnants of a broken heirloom, he thought if he destroyed his own secret to the very core then no one would see his shame. Now no one would see it, no one would see anything and Loki thought it was better this way. He would save everyone in the end, save them from him and the beast lurking beneath his skin.   
  
If only that was end. 

* * *

  
Falling wasn’t so terrible, the hard part is landing.   
  
To be more precise Loki was snatched out of the void, denied his end by a being that worlds cower before.   
  
Thanos.  
  
At the titans side- his loyal servant simply called ‘the other’. Soon to become Loki’s tormentor.  
  
 _"You will have your war, Asgardian. If you fail, if the Tesseract is kept from us, there will be no realm, no barren moon, and no crevice where he can't find you. You think you know pain. He will make you long for something as sweet as pain."_  
  
Perhaps he was already dead. If he was a ghost and this was nothing more than his own deprived mind tormenting him with final flashes and nightmares and fantasy before his brain snuffed out like a candle; then he could endure.   
  
The omega fell to his knees on a broken rock-remnants of the former planet destroyed by the titan on the throne before him. This was penance; this was payment for the abomination he was.  If only Odin had left him to die.   
  
Hatred twisted in his gut, helped along by the scepter pointed in his chest. “I will…”   
  
“Good Little godling, but first… we must make sure you are loyal to me.” Thanos’ voice rumbled from the titan’s wide chest, “Take him away.”  
  
This was the day Loki Odin son died, all that was left was a pawn with empty blue eyes.


	3. Prologue: The day we became ghosts  (Bucky)

Joining up was supposed to make things better, that really what James Barnes thought when first put on that freshly starched uniform and cap. He was a beta but he could fight with the best of them and he was a hell’ ova shot. Best of all? Barnes knew that when he came home that he’s have some fancy paper from the US government that said he could bond with the one person he’d loved for most of his life.

 

  
  
“Hey Stevie!”   
  
Bucky was sure he had run the full nine blocks back from the recruitment office to their tiny apartment in the Bronx. It had been home since Steve’s mom had passed, omega couldn’t hold property leases if they were unmated and without children. The idea of Steve having to go to one of those group homes made Barnes’ skin crawl. Therefore, he picked up this little place in an old tenement building not far from the one they both had grown up. It wasn’t nice but kept the heat in during the winter and the windows let in the breeze in the summer. Even if it leaked some when it rained.   
  
Bursting through the door with a bright smile on his face, it didn’t take long to find the familiar little blond. Steve was sitting in bed with a pad of paper on his lap; he set down his pencil and smiled at the excited beta as Bucky flitted around waving a handful of papers.  
  
“Bucky…what’s gotten into you?” he asked just as the other boy dropped the file in his lap.   
  
“I did it! I enlisted, I’m gonna go over there and kick those Germans right where it hurts!”  He was so proud; he was going to make Steve proud. He knew how much the little omega loathed the news report about the atrocities going on over seas. Steve had always hated bullies.   
  
Steve looked over the papers and forced a smile, “Hey that’s…great…really swell.”   
  
“Wow …don’t hold back tell me how ya really feel.” Barnes deflated at the smaller boy’s lack of excitement.  
  
Steve rolled his shoulders and sighed. “No really, I’m happy for you Buck…I mean at least one of us will get to go right.”   
  
“Stevie are you on that again! Look, I know you don’t like it but I agree with the laws, you don’t need to be in a place like that, you’re too sweet for all that babe.” Bucky said, he didn’t like it when Steve got in one of these moods. He was always scared to death the kid would go out, pick a fight with some knot head alpha, and get beaten to death or worse. There was a lot of ways a little person like Steve could be punished for stepping out of line.   
  
“Bucky, .James…” Steve blushed; that was a face Bucky loved. When the slim boys cheeks would flush with color all the way up to his ears. That glow that looked alive and healthy.   
  
James Barnes might not have been an Alpha, but when it came to Steve, he could certainly act like one. Reaching out to cup the slender Youngman’s face, he smiled. “I promise I’ll come back and ya know what? The Military said that betas with service records will be able to legally mate with omegas after the war so…so…” He fumbled over his words.  It’s funny how confident he’d been the whole way over here and now he was stumbling all over himself.   
  
Steve’s blue eyes widened at the implication… “James you don’t want me…you should settle down with a nice beta girl or …or even a better, another omega when you can. I’m…well I mean look at me.”   
  
“Oh I’m lookin sunshine… and you’ll see when I come back here a big hero you’re just going to have to change your tune.” Barnes grinned.   
  
When he came home, it was all going to be better.

* * *

  
It was 41 when his Unit was captured. They didn’t even know whom the soldiers were, their uniforms looked different and the badges had some weird symbol with a skull and tentacles.  Then there were the weapons they used, like nothing the company had ever seen.   
  
The next thing Bucky knew he was being struck with the butt of a rifle and dragged to a truck.   
  
When he woke up, he was strapped down to a gurney listing to screaming coming from down the hall. His heart pounding in his chest listening to the sounds of machinery and wails of agony. The soldier tested his bonds, jerking first at the writs straps and then his ankles.   
  
There was no escape.   
  
‘I can’t die like this.’ James thought, staring up at the dim lights about him. ‘I can’t leave Steve, he won’t make it with out me.’ tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. If the beta never returned home, or worse …came back in a box - he knew his family would probably take Steve in. His mom, Rebecca, they all loved Steve. That wouldn’t be the same though; there wouldn’t be anyone there to keep that fool kid from being beaten to death in some alley.   
  
It wasn’t that Bucky was afraid of his own mortality; growing up poor he knew what it was like to be hungry and tired. Since he’d shipped out Barnes had seen things. He knew what death looked like because he’d been right next to it in a foxhole. He knew how it felt to be standing next to a man and in the next breath feel warm blood spray against the side of your face. To look down and see a young fellow just like you laying there in the mud lifeless.   
  
What frightened him more than anything was the nights he and his unit spend camped in the countryside. Listening to the distant rumble of bombs and motors. Moments when his mind would play tricks on him and he’d swear he could smell the familiar cloying scent of ginger and honey. Those misty nights looking across a field his eyes would quiver from the cold and he swore there was a thin silhouette standing there in the haze. Waking to fading dream of blue eyes and blond hair smeared with blood, chapped lips pleading below him ‘till the end of the line’.   
  
Barnes felt himself fading in and out, he felt drugged and cold. The room seemed darker once he came back from his haze, how long had he been here? He felt dirt and tired, his arm ached and when he tiled his head to look he saw swaths of gauze from blood draws.   
  
What were they doing?  
  
His head felt too heavy to think and even though he fought valiantly, his eyes fell shut once again.   
  
The next time Bucky opened his eyes there was shouting, it sounded like the place was under siege. He thought perhaps that the allied forces had come for them. There were suddenly hands on him tearing away the thick straps like tissue paper, and a voice.   
  
“Bucky? Bucky come one say something.”   
  
This was not right; he blinked and looked to the man before him. It was…but it was not… “Steve? You got…big?” 

* * *

  
Captain America.   
  
Yeah that’s what they were calling Steve now, the whole thing with the serum just seemed so wild. Knowing that there was some evil organization called Hydra that was fighting along side the Nazi’s was even weirder.  Somehow, he just accepted it, because…hell- what else can you do?   
  
There was more though, things between Bucky and Steve were different now. Maybe neither one of them said it at first but it was there. Finally one night Barnes couldn’t keep it to himself.   
  
“So the serum, you look…well I mean your healthy and that’s great but.”  
  
“I know, I’m different.” Steve looked so resigned to that. Sometimes he would bump into things as if he forgot how wide his shoulders where or how tall he was now. He was that same clumsy boisterous kid but now he had the stature to match. Only now, you could really see the difference because for as much heart as Steve had, he had something else under that. Insecurity and a longing that very few people got to see.   
  
Bucky rubbed the back of his neck “Different ain’t bad, I just…well. Look, I cannot scent you like I used to. I know I’m beta and it’s not like my nose was ever the best but it ain’t like we get regular showers these days.”  
  
“That’s because I’m not like I was Buck…I’m not…they don’t know what I am anymore. I’m sorry but, that little omega you used to know is gone.”   
  
He had suspected it, the way the men respected Steve. The way the blonde-haired once-omega carried himself these days. Bucky wasn’t exactly the fussy type, he’d dated alpha girls before. “Nah, he just got bigger pants.”   
  
They shared a laugh and bunked down, hands lingering together but never more than that. This wasn’t the time for that but maybe one day, maybe when all this was over. 

* * *

  
It wouldn’t come to that though; the war would never really be over for Bucky Barnes.   
  
Looking up at Steve as the freezing wind whipped behind him, he knew he could not hang on, knew he was to far out and even Steve with all that strength could not deify logic.   
  
Still he reached, stretched out his numbing fingers and whispered his mother’s silent prayers.   
  
It wasn’t enough. 

* * *

  
Falling….isn’t so bad.   
  
It’s fast and to be honest he was caught between fear and disbelief as the train speed odd and he speed down. Crashing into the craggy ravine and frozen landscape. Looking up at the white winter sky and feeling the blood draining and taking away the blessed heat from his body. He felt every breath burn as he watched the slowly falling snowflakes gather on his damp eyelashes.   
  
This was dying, Barnes thought. Yet it was ok, in some weird way it was all right, Steve didn’t need him anymore. Steve would be fine; he’d make it out of this war and be bonifide hero.   
  
Steve would be fine.   
  
Those were the final thoughts that fired across James Buchannan Barnes mind as he lay there in the snow. That should have been the end but it wasn’t it.   
  
…..it was only the beginning.   
  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 1: When all you have is darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Here’s some more awful work for you guys. Yeah..

The mission was complete.  
  
 Really, it was too simple to warrant an assassin of his caliber,  but the powers that be wanted it done and done right. The asset, they knew, would ask no questions as it was outside of his programming.  It was that mindless subjugation they found valuable in a trained killer. Why go to the trouble with lose ends with you have your very own attack dog on ice.   
  
The target had been acquired and dispatched as the man exited a black car in front of what was suppose to be a ‘safe house‘.  Nothing was safe when ‘the ghost’ was after you. Not a crack or crevasse that you could hide in, that was the kind of hunter Hydra had crafted. A killer with cold pale eyes that echoed the very tundra they pulled him from.   
  
For the Asset this was just business as usual.   
  
Just another  in a series of disjointed days and moments. Each one subject to the ravages of ‘re-programming.’  Should his handler decide he was becoming to ‘lax’ or that look that he gave them spoke of even a whisper toward rebellion. They couldn’t lose their Winter Soldier.   
  
Pale eyes shift over the scene through his scope lens, Mission successful. He watched the driver and the targets bodyguard rush and lift the limp body from the pavement. The still bleeding hole between the targets eyes made it clear there would be no use calling for help. It was clean and efficient, just as his Masters preferred.   
  
His gaze shifted from the blood-spattered concrete over to the various building facades, some old and some new, that lined the street. Things had changed again, they always changed, leaps and bounds in time that made his skin crawl and fingers itch. Music played softly from behind him, sometimes he thought he liked music - or maybe he liked it before.   
  
Before was fuzzy and wrong, before was filled with images he didn’t like and feelings that made the assets chest ache and shoulder burn. 

Before wasn’t allowed.   
  
As the soldier stepped away from the window, the sound of a howl crackled from a radio in the back of the small rented room    
  
It was time to go. If anyone on the street had seen the hit that meant the police were on their way.  
  
 ** _“Who’s that I see walking through these woods? … Well its little red riding hood!”_**  
  
Hands- both metal and flesh, mover quickly to disassemble the rifle and pack the deadly instrument away in an  non descript case.   
  
Remove the magazine and pack it away- he only used one bullet anyway. Next, remove the blot, then the barrel to leave the wooden stock bare.  Metal fingers hum as the false joints move with swift practiced motions. The stock is packed away in a case and then the scope is removed from the action barrel before it to be tucked away in the case.   
  
**_“Just to see that you don’t get chased, I think I ought to walk with you for a’ ways!”_**  
  
The scope was better than the last one, he thinks to himself his flesh fingertips slide along the evolved optics. Of course, it would be better than the last and next time maybe Howa--- wait… who?  His brain fizzles at the aborted name and blurred image his mind tries to supply, his weapons come from  his handler, his handler gives him the mission, the rules, the words, and nothing else is relevant.   
  
Still, that crawling whisper in his cerebellum won‘t give up entirely and asks -‘When was I out last…59? 57?’  The asset knows it doesn’t matter, it never maters. Even what year it is now doesn’t mater because the only thing that has relevance is the mission. It’s just that part of him wants it to matter…  
   
 ** _“Little red riding hood, I’d like to hold you if I could! But you might think I’m a big bad wolf so I won’t.”_**  
  
He slings the case over one shoulder and exit’s the hotel room. The hotel it self was little more than an old out of the way joint. It was better to use these types of places because they were places where no one would remember your name.   
  
The old man at the counter had glasses as thick as coke bottles and the staff was a few disinterested teenagers and an  old woman. 

The asset remembered seeing one of the younger men taking the trash out that morning, a skinny kid  with a crew cut.  He didn’t know why he recalled that, it was late evening and the kid wasn’t here. No one was out and about in the parking lot or the narrow walkway with its decorative iron balcony rails. Tugging a cap down over his eyes and making his way down the stairs, it was getting dark and the room is paid for until tomorrow. Not that he will be there.  This was an in and out sort of job; three days maximum to recon, find the ideal location and then eliminate the target.   
  
After that, he had to leave and fast.   
  
That was another thing that had improved with time - police response time. Not that the soldier couldn’t handle law enforcement, or even a damn army if need be. The fact was ‘they’ didn’t want him to, he had one job and that was it. It was easier if no one asked questions.   
  
A sleek black car was waiting a block away with his handler, this one is younger than the last and has ambition. Pierce, he thinks the name is.  Young guy with blond hair and blue eyes, there’s something about that he wants to trust, not because he’s supose to but because of something else. Like nostalgia, something in that hazy place were he can’t go that remembers cornflower eyes.   
  
_**“Even bad wolves can be good!”**_  
  
The asset makes his way down the empty city streets. Darting down alleyways littered with puddles and dying neon lights, something’s never change they just slowly rot.   
  
Some where in the back of his mind his vision flickers with another ally way and thin hands with a white-knuckle grip on a trashcan lid. Who was that? When was that?  
  
 _ **“Owoooo!”**_

* * *

The cycle begins and ends countless times, names and faces blur with the snap of freezing cold. Sometimes he wonders if this is all a dream, if maybe none of it real. Something in the darkest recesses of the soldiers mind says that it isn’t just a night more or some purgatory for the sinful.   
  
Although, there is one dream - in it, he feels the world drifting away and everything is cold, then there is pain, so much pain and it burns like fire in his bones. It starts in his shoulder and then blazes across his chest. Vaguely he remembers bright lights and a man with a heavy accent saying something about how ‘lucky’ the asset is.  Then something happens, he fought so hard but then something was taken, some little sliver of warmth that kept him hoping - it died. Someone died…who?   
  
Once the images came back so brightly that  he tried to run, he killed another handler this one was not Pierce, that man had grown older and moved up in rank. This was a woman with a sharp face and dark eyes, he slit her throat. He didn’t even feel anything as he watched the blood bubble up and spill down her delicate neck, staining her white blouse red.   
  
The soldier didn‘t make it far and when they found him they took him to their newest ‘training’ facility.  Instead of the injections that clouded his head or a round of  beatings, there was simply - a chair.   
  
“Wipe him.”  
  
The order was given and from then on, it was as if all of the colors turned gray.    
  
Until that day when he saw the man in the fancy car with his pretty wife, the man he was supposed to kill. Their son was supposed to be with them but there has been a last moment change. The handlers changed to orders.   
  
“Kill the Starks and return. That is your mission.”   
  
Stark…Stark….  
  
It wasn‘t clear then, not until the car swerved from the first bullets impact through the drivers side windshield and went careening down the embankment. It wasn‘t until he stood over the crying woman in the passenger seat who clutched her rosary and begged. Watched her sob and reach out for the already cooling body of the man next to her. The man who seemed…familiar in a strange way, though his hair was white and the lines on his face had grown deep with time.   
  
“Please! Please! Don‘t kill me! Please I have a son! He‘s just a boy, please!” 

He put a bullet between her eyes and walked away from the wreckage. It wasn‘t until he was half way up the embankment and he looked back at the car did something flash painfully from the darkness in his cerebellum.   
  
_“Welcome to the worlds fair! Now presenting a promising new inventor Howard stark!”_  
  
 _“Hey Punk, would ya look at that, a flying car.”_   
  
The asset hit his knees and slid half way back down the muddy embankment, his head on fire from the vivid images assaulting his brain. He had totally forgotten about the explosive planted in the car -set to detonate and destroy all evidence of foul play.   
  
_“Remember the time I made you ride the cyclone at Coney island?”_  
  
 _“Yeah, and I threw up.”_  
  
What…no when, who? It hurts, it stabs around in his head and makes his heart pound against his ribs.   
  
_“Nice shield  way better than’a  trash can.”_  
  
 _“Yeah yeah, I’ll send Howard   your regards.”_  
  
The name was there, the man in the car, the man in his head. There were others too, soldiers, his friends his comrades, brothers in arms and they were all together as a pack.   
  
“..St….Ste..”

 **0:03**  
  
 **0:02**  
  
 **0:01**  
  
 **0:00**  
  
The blast tore away the words in a wave of heat and light. He was too close and the sound rang in his ears leaving the asset pressed into the moist earth. His fingers clawing into the soil as debris rained down around him.   
  
His com link crackled and buzzed, the words sounding as if through water as his handlers shouted for a status report.   
  
“What have I done…” 

* * *

  
The years would pass as easily as sand through an hourglass.   
  
Time is funny that way, there is so much and yet never enough. Even when you live thousands of years  in comparison to other beings, there are moments in which you wish your life was so fragile.   
  
Loki perhaps wished it up until the moment the other pressed the scepter into his hands. The order was clear, conquer Midgard and retrieve the tesseract.  The liar smith knew on some level it could never be that simple. Even when he had visited the primitive realm so many centuries before he knew then that the people of Midgard or ‘earth’ as they preferred, would not go along so quietly. Maybe he hoped they wouldn’t, hoped he would attracted the attention of someone strong enough to but an end to this.   
  
An end to him.   
  
Why else would he chose SHIELD of all places to make his entrance, he knew many rifts between worlds, and with the power of Thanos at his disposal, another could have easily been created. Even then, in his own foolish way he used the shred of himself still clinging to his sanity to manipulate the situation. He took the archer because he knew someone of equal or greater strength would come to retrieve the man.

He made a spectacle of himself, a show of power and bravado because - as the man of iron so loved to point out - being a diva was a talent he well possessed.   
  
Then, there was Thor.  He knew his brother would come for him, or maybe he wasn’t sure entirely. Part of him wanted to believe that everyone on Asgard had simply forgotten him, that even the Hiemdall would cast his gaze away. That however could never be farther from the truth.   
  
Loki had so much he wanted to say, so much he could not bear to. Not that Thor would have listened, and he couldn’t tell him the whole truth, not with the mad titan watching.   
  
_“Look at this! Look around you! You think this madness will end with your rule?”_  
  
 _“It’s too late. It's too late to stop it.”_  
  
The tears were real, even when he could not allow them …sentiment.  Showing weakness turns you into prey, he had been prey for far too long. No, he would not allow himself such a pathetic death for failure. Even if victory were beyond his reach, even then he would chance down a warriors end. He would hold his head high and sharpen his tongue because those lies were all he had left. 

* * *

  
When it was over and the scepters hold began to ease, he hoped the avengers would kill him. In a foolish way, he hoped it would be Thor, that the thunderer would have some sort of notion that it was his ‘duty’. Maybe it would even be a poetic end of sorts far better than he deserved, to have Odin’s true son execute the Jotun runt.

They did not, only casting their mortal eyes on him with such hatred and anger. As if these were looks he was not unfamiliar with. He was gagged with a metal mask to keep his silver tongue from muttering any lies - that he was sure was his brothers suggestion. After all, it was a punishment he was well used to on Asgard. He recalled in his youth his alpha brothers tears as he helped hold him down with the healers sewed his mouth shut.   
  
There wasn’t a trace of apology in his not-brothers eyes now.  The wound was to deep and the transgression too great.   
  
Death…there was so much of it on his shoulders.  Maybe just by knowing him Thor was meant to carry that burden as well. It seemed the people of Midgard were not aware of their relation or the lie of one.  It would be better that way; at least here Thor would not be tainted by their false kinship.   
  
Loki was surprised when the leaders of SHIELD allowed Thor to return to Asgard with him as prisoner. Perhaps they were well aware that there was no pitiful jail here that could hold him. On the other hand, maybe the director wasn’t as foolish as he appeared; perhaps the one eyed man could see far better than those around him and saw Loki for what he was. A beacon of destruction.   
  
Therefore, Loki and the tesseract returned the realm of gold, to the very palace he had once called home.   
  
It was no longer home, the eyes of the court only echoed those on Midgard. The Trial before the All-father proved pointless.  Loki could have defended his actions, could have told them then but…what good is the word from the God of lies? He played the part they requested of them and offered his neck to the chopping block.   
  
Odin, the man he once called father. Looked him in the eyes and once again denied him. Death would be too good for him, no… Loki would need to suffer. To spend the rest of his days in the dungeons of Asgard with out a single soul to care for him. Even Frigga, the one person who he did not despise, was taken from him. She begged for his life just as any mother would.   
  
He wanted to tell her it was a waste of tears, wanted to scream for her to take back her love for him. Let him die and pay for these sins with nothing to miss.   
  
As Loki was lead away he looked back only once to see her standing there, her head held high as a Queen should. Yet her eyes spoke the truth, shining with unshed tears.   
  
Don’t… please. Not for me, never for me. I’m not the child you knew, I never was…I don’t even know what’s left of me now.


	5. Chapter 2: Demons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: …depression isn’t fun. But here’s a chapter, probably as horrid as the last, I‘m sorry.

The most dangerous thing can be a man’s mind. It can fill him with promise and possibility through imagination and knowledge, making him a force to be reckoned with. Alternatively, that same mind can use those same tools to create a world of horror and pain, tearing him down bit-by-bit.  
  
 A famous author once said that all the best people are a little bit mad.  
  
 However, are those people at their best? How does one measure madness?  

* * *

  
 _*scritch*_  
  
 _*scratch*_  
  
 _*ticker tap… tap…. tap*_  
  
Fear filled green eyes snap open in the night. The cell that is usually blinding white during the day is now pitch black, his mind wants to reason that the sounds that woke him are impossible. That the shimmering barrier that separates the fallen prince from the rest of the dudgeon’s occupants - would never allow any kind of vermin to pass through. Intellectually, Loki knows there is nothing in his cell.   
  
Yet the distinct sounds of claws scrap at the floors and walls around him. Each one growing closer.   
  
“It’s not…” He whispers and draws his legs together and against his chest. There is nothing here, there is nothing here.  
  
 _*SCrrrAAATTccchhhhh*_

Snapping his hands over his ears in an effort to silence the wakeful nightmare proves futile. Even in the self-imposed sensory deprivation, he can still hear the tap of razor sharp nails as they drum on the desk in the far corner. It’s waiting for him.   
  
Loki pinches his eyes closed and tells himself he needs to wake up, this is a nightmare and perhaps it isn’t even a late hour at all. Perhaps he has fallen asleep in one of the few precious books he has in his cell. He had stayed awake for days upon his incarceration; it wouldn’t be that farfetched to think that the fatigue finally caught up.   
  
The blackened room finally fell silent and the omega opened his eyes. Nothing. Just as he thought, there was nothing but himself and these walls. It would be so until he died or the All-father saw fit to release him or decide to end this farce and simply execute him.

  
  
 _ **“Did I not make myself clear Godling?”**_ A voice called from the darkness.  “ ** _My master gave you a task, and you failed._** ”  
  
Out of the darkness, a clawed hand with six fingers clasped tightly around the prisoner’s throat and pressed him into the bed. **_“You will know agony like no other! I will enjoy tearing the flesh from your pious face and rending the muscle from bone as you write beneath me.”_**  
  
He wanted to scream as the room around him fell away, reveling the barren planet of the chittari.  
  
 ** _“Where are your gilded words now little Asgardian?”_** The other hissed, one hand still squeezing at the ravenette throat as the other trailed down the thin tunic and sleep pants. **_“Do you think I have forgotten how you knelt before the army Lord Thanos gave you? The way your sweat smelled in the ships barracks as the generals had their way with you. Filthy, pathetic little omega, I would have killed you and eaten your heart.”_ **  
  
Loki did remember, he remembered how Thanos grinned and had those beasts carried him away. The way the mad titan said, they would need to ‘test’ his loyalty.   
  
_“If he lives, bring him back to me.”_ The violet-skinned Thanos requested.   
  
Dragged through the strange alien ship, Loki had been so sure they meant to beat him or perhaps torture him. He could take these things, as the prince of Asgard, though his strength may not equal that of his shining brother, he was still strong. Still capable of taking pain and holding his head high.

This, this was not what he had ever imagined. This pain was not one he could so easily endure, while he tried so valiantly….they broke him.

* * *

  
An Einherjar had been making the night rounds when the sound of blood curdling screams pierced through the darkened halls. The young guard ran to the sound as the screams grew desperate and crazed. It sounds as if someone was dying, or perhaps being murdered.   
  
His armor clanged as his steps increased, he knew where he was going now. The farther down into the twisting halls he realized there is but one prisoner that resides in this cold and lonely stretch of cells.   
  
The former prince.   
  
The guard touched the barrier wall and the cell is thrown into brilliant light. Even though the young man is a soldier and seen the horror of battle he has never seen this, has never had his stomach roll or the bile rise in his throat as he watched the once proud prince writing and clawing at now bloodied flesh.   
  
“By the nine…”   
  
The dungeons become a flurry of activity as more guards arrived all trying to restrain the bloody and hysterical royal. Loki’s skin flickers a pale blue and the men release him for fear of the jotun’s power.   
  
Standing back, they look on wide eyed as the raven-haired prince crawls into a corner, a slick trail of red staining the white floors in his wake.   
  
“Move Now!” A voice called behind the guardsman, it was lady Eir, head of the royal healers, still garbed in her night robe with her hair in long braids over her shoulders. She had come as soon as word reached her.  “What did I say?”  She again demanded when the guard did not move.

The Einherjar step aside as the woman approached the injured prisoner, a calming siedr flowed from her fingertips and sacred words fall from her lips. “Calm yourself child, there is nothing here that means you ill.” Her magic reached out to caress the gashes on the prince’s face, neck, long lines of red over his chest and arms. There was too much blood coating the floors and bedclothes, even for a Jotun.  She waited for Loki to calm, his eyes lidded and body slumped into the corner, he would be easier to move unconscious.   
  
“One of you carry him, he need attention now or he will die.”  
  
Her tone left no room for argument in her intentions to Loki from his cell. Still one young man hesitated, fearful of the repercussions for allowing the dungeons most famed prison released.   
  
“My Lady, the prisoner is forbidden to …”  
  
“To what? To live? Tell me Einherjar, would you volunteer to go before the all-mother and explain to her why her son is dead?”  
  
The young guard faltered and stepped aside. 

* * *

  
A servant is excused from the King and Queens quarters after delivering her message.  
  
Without a thought to the late hour, Frigga is on her feet already tugging on her robe when her husband reached out to stop her.  
  
“Stop, I will have guards sent to insure he does not escape. This is nothing you cannot tend to in the morning.”  
  
She looks to Odin with fire in her eyes, “My son, our son could be dying!”  
  
“He is not; Loki is not so foolish to do that much damage to secure him more favorable accommodations. This is a ploy Frigga can you not see?” Odin pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation. He needed far more rest that he had had in quite some time now, Loki and his trickery would not steal another night.   
  
The Queens head tilted up, looking down at her husband. “I see the man I loved, the man I trusted with my children- blood or not, he loved them, protected them. I see that man has faded into a ghost and left behind a cold bitter old fool.” She said no more, turning her back and leaving their bedroom with a solid slam of the chamber door.

Frigga was single minded in her trip through the low lit gilded halls, when she arrived at the healers wing she was greeted by Eir. The sight of the woman standing in the corridor with blood drying on her nightclothes sends chills through the Queen.   
  
“My lady…”  
  
“Eir, tell me that my son is well.”  
  
The healer looks away from her Queen; how does one say such news?  Even knowing all the prince is guilty of, Eir still remembers the sickly child that she held so long ago. She remembers the nights spent with the King and Queen of Asgard as they fretted over such a frail child. Loki had grown strong, he had surpassed anything she had hoped and proved repeatedly he was no longer that sickly child. Yet now… “He lives, though I think perhaps that was not his goal. The wounds were grievous, had it not been for the guard that heard his screams I fear the outcome of this night would be far worse.”  
  
Frigga did not flinch, much to her credit the Queen held her composure. “My husband seems to believe Loki did this purposefully to gain freedom. I ask you now-   in confidence as my friend for so long, I beg you tell me what you believe.”   
  
  
Eir shook her head, “You need not ask, you are his mother and the truth is surely what you deserve. As any mother would regardless of what the court may think of him. No, I do not think this to be a trick. I have seen Loki when he played ill to get out of his studies or activates as a boy. I know well the gleam of mischief in his eyes.  This…his mind was so clouded and shattered that I could scarcely hold him together long enough to ease him into sleep.” She looked up at the Queen, this woman whom she had known for centuries, this woman who was not just a royal but the closest thing to a sister to her. Eir reached out and took Frigga’s hands in her own. “I believe this has been done to him; there is a presence within him that has tainted his siedr. It is woven in to his very soul, I have never seen anything like it and I fear… He will go mad, perhaps he already has.”

* * *

  
  
“Father is right.”   
  
Frigga could hardly believe her ears; Thor had always been so close to his younger brother. Although, considering Loki’s betrayal it was not hard to see that the remaining Prince of Asgard would have pause where his brother was concerned. Still, she had always believed that her boys would always stand by one another. Especially in times of crisis.   
  
“Your brother did not do this to himself Thor. He could not have survived the Void alone, nor could he have come by weapon like the scepter on his own.”  
  
Thor turned away from his mother; siding with his father had not been an easy task. He had long hoped that Loki had somehow survived and would return to them. However, Loki had killed so many people; because of this, Thor had lost faith in his little brother. His memories of that bright child who used to follow him around the palace are now tainted with memories of New York. Of his shield brothers the Avengers, his new pack on Midgard, their fierce warrior’s heart that made them honorable comrades in his eyes.  All he saw now when he looked at Loki…was fire and death.   
  
Loki could have ended all of Midgard, and still had not shown an ounce of regret for his actions, “Loki has always had the habit of finding his way. Just as he has always craved a throne, it is not hard to believe he would have willingly sacrificed his own mind for power. Warriors have been known to go to the extreme to enhance their strength.”  
  
“Yes, because Loki would have destroyed the one thing he was so proud of just to best you?” Her tone dripped with sarcasm, “You did not see him Thor, and you did not see the horror in his eyes.”  
  
“And I will not, I’m sorry mother but I will not cater to Loki or his schemes any longer. I will not go to him, only to be tricked. I am finished hoping that he will change.” With that, the golden prince turned away, leaving his mother standing alone in the gardens she so loved, gardens that Loki once loved as well.   
  
“You are your father’s son…” She spoke quietly, her aged fingers cupping one of the vibrant red blossoms that grew nearby. She watched the petals quiver in the light breeze, beautiful and fragile.  “And he was mine…”

* * *

  
The nightmares and hallucinations of Thanos and the other grew more frequent. Perhaps it was his isolation or perhaps something darker. 

In his more lucid moments, Loki wondered if the other had planted something with in his mind, something that would slowly destroy him for his failure to deliver the tesseract.  
  
 Those moment of clarity grew farther apart and Eir had been forbidden from tending to the once prince. Odin had warned her that Loki was not to be trusted, that he could ‘craft lies so fine that even the Norns would have difficulty unraveling them’. The healer was still not so sure, she had asked that the King reconsider, that she and the other healers could find the truth if given time. They could find what was real and was imagined. Frigga as well, pleaded for her son.   
  
The All father maintained, “Once he sees we will not fall for his trickery he will be well again. Loki would never do anything so foolish as to harm himself beyond repair.”   
  
How wrong he was.  
  
 Several young guards had entered Loki’s cell to inspect the area and make sure their prisoner had food and water. Before they entered they took no care to look closely at the prisoner, perhaps if they had they would have noticed the far away blank stare or the whit-knuckled grip Loki had on his bedclothes. Like a caged animal as he stared at them, unseeing.   
  
To Loki, their steps rang to heavy and the white of the cell fell away. Before him his tormenters, the Chitatari generals with hungry eyes, eyes that drank him in and longed to claim every part. Clawed hands that meant to tear into his flesh and strip him bare.    
  
Not again.  
  
Not ever again.  
  
In a flash, the ravenette screamed and attacks one of the guards.  In his weekend state and without access to his siedr Loki was no match for the Einherjar. The angry young guardsman beat the slender noble with closed fists until the prisoner crumpled to the floor, then lay into the broken form with thick armored boots.   
  
They never liked Loki, the snide remarks and haughty gaze, “That’s it! Take the liar omega down a peg!” One of them laughed before joining in.  When Loki crawled away, broken and bleeding they took the cup of water from his tray and poured it on his head, laughing before throwing the goblet down on the trembling form. 

“Farewell prince, enjoy an early night!” The one who had thrown the first punch said, flipping a switch outside the cell that pitched the enclosure into darkness.   
  
The black imposed night was worse than the beating, out of the dark things could crawl and claw at him. Things that could take him apart bit by bit.   
  
“You will know pain Asgardian. That you could never imagine.”  
  
  
That evening when the guards changed, a servant girl called Sigyn, entered the dungeons with a pitcher and chamber bowl. She had once been Loki’s personal handmaid. She had always liked Loki and was fond of him; one could even say that she loved him. However, as an omega herself that would have never been allowed. Thus, she quietly held her affections and served her master as best she could, she had mourned him when all of Asgaurd despised the fallen prince and had rejoiced to hear that he yet lived. Even in after his heinous acts against the others realms she always had pity for him. Sigyn had seen Loki the way others had not, she had seen the sad child that longed for friendship. She had watched him as he grew up and saw the distain in his eyes as he looked at himself, tall and leanly muscled, his dark hair and sharp features that alphas did not find tasteful.   
  
As she walked through the cell lined halls she thought of him, the last she had seen him was over a week ago. They would not allow her more visits, just enough to help the former royal to lightly bathe. As prisoners were not permitted to enjoy the springs or other pleasures, even Loki who had been noticeably favored with a private cell and secluded away from the other prisoners.   
  
He had been so thin and wild-eyed the last time, speaking little to her as if she was not even there. Sigyn remembers when he was young and she would wash his hair for him, only a few years older herself, she would blush when he smiled and leaned his head back into her hands. Only she was allowed to see him in such a way.   
  
It seemed odd that his cell was dark when she approached, the guard coming up from another hall thought so too.   
  
“Is my master ill?”  She asked, still referring to him as such, no matter what anyone had told her. Even if the court took his title, Loki was still a prince in her heart.   
  
“I was not told so, it is possible. One moment Lady Sigyn, while I check on the prisoner.” This guard was kind, he was one who allowed her more time, and always took slow walks on his rounds when the Queen would send one of her illusions to check on Loki.   
  
The lights went on, and Sigyn screamed.

* * *

  
  
The King and Queen were in the throne room when news arrived. This time, Odin accompanied his wife to the healing wing. He looked on as a bloody beaten mass that used to be his son was held down to bed, writing hysterical - babbling about monsters. Then a name fell form Loki’s’ swollen and split lips. A name the All-father knew.   
  
“Thanos.”  
  
Odin felt his heart clench with sorrow, he felt ill and stumble out of the room looking away from his elder son who ran down the hall having come back from the training grounds to similar news.  
  
“Father what has happened!”  
  
Odin shook his head, “I was wrong, terribly wrong.”


	6. Chapter 3: You were my mission

The asset had discarded his wet uniform and stole a few meager garments from a donation drop box outside of church. Somewhere in his mind, he heard an echo of a woman scolding ‘I taught you better James’. Moreover, chose to ignore that.  
Having waited several hours after the helicarrier destruction, the asset made his way through the forests and neighboring towns. Each mile past and left him num in the early fall chill.   
  
Later, when passing electronics shop, he would see a news report about Captain America being held in a Washington hospital. The video showed the man in questioning lead away by another man wearing sunglasses. The pair retreated to a waiting jet on the hospital rooftop. The press wishing the Captain the best now that his name was cleared. Apparently, the files SHIELD had on their database- and by association files on HYDRA, had been leaked onto the internet.  The public now knew everything.   
  
Everyone knew why this man in his star spangled uniform was so important. Everyone but the asset.   
  
He did not understand why he saved that man… the Captain, simply that he knew him. How or when ...everything was a jumble of images and none of them seemed to fit together.   
  
_Steve.  Steve…. An omega with blue eyes…_  
  
No that wasn’t right, or was it?   
  
Why did this hurt so much, why did feel like his head was full of nails and the blood was gathering behind his eyes. Tears…not blood, the asset wasn’t even sure he knew how to cry. They had trained him better than to give in to such petty emotions.   
  
Still he wanted them. Those painful little droplets that crawled out of his heart to slide down his cheeks.   
  
He couldn’t go back that was the only thing the soldier was sure of; he didn’t want to lose these memories again. No matter how painful the flashes of the before were, he wanted them…No, he needed them. Needed to know who that man was to him.   
  
More than that, he needed to know who he was.  
  
 _Bucky?_

* * *

  
_“Stop pickin at it ya makin it worse!” he said, smacking Steve’s hand away from the fresh scabs the younger boy had on his knees and chin. Bodily medals of bravery or perhaps in the little omega’s case- stupidity._   
  
_“Not my ma…” Steve muttered trying to turn away and continue to worry the uncomfortable itchy patches of skin._   
  
_As if on cue, Sara Rodgers opened the fire escape window and glared at the two boys seated on the rusty old catwalk. “Steven Grant I told you to stay in bed!”_   
  
_“I told’em Ms. R, Punk want listen to me a lick.”_   
  
_Sara hummed and looked past Barnes to her own son who at least had the decency to look sheepish. “Inside now.”_   
  
_“Yes Ma’am.” Steve said with his head hung low, struggling up onto thin legs and amble back in through the window._   
  
_Half way the slender blond stumbled and Bucky shot his arms out to catch his friend. Both boys flushed at the close proximity- the fall had left Steve laying in his beta friend’s arms._   
  
_“James sweetheart will ya bring him in for me?” Sara said kindly, her eyes smiling at them. Even though they were just children, she was optimistic for them._   
  
_“Yes Ma’am.”_

 

 

The assets eyes fluttered open as the dream drifted away.  He was cold and wet having spent several nights in storm drains and abandoned cars. He had so many of these dreams and each one felt different. Yet the more he had them the more he craved.   
  
Bucky, James Buchannan Barnes. That’s who he was. There was a certain kind of power in knowing his name, knowing he was more than just a tool. Still, it was hard to think of himself in those terms. No one had called him by his name in such a long time that it still sounded strange on his tongue.   
  
There was more too. That man, Steven Grant Rogers. They had grown up together.   
  
One thing still had not made sense though and that was how the skinny sickly kid in his head grew up to be Captain America. Maybe it wasn’t the same person, but then how did that Steve know his name?   
  
Barnes wandered from place to place until finally finding his way back to New York. He knew it was risky but he had to see it for himself. He had to walk the streets of Brooklyn and let the familiarity wash over him. Sure things had changed but his feet seemed to know the route.   
  
Then he went to the Smithsonian in D.C and stood before the exhibit about the man he used to be and the man he saved. 

 

 **Bucky Barnes: 1917 - 1944**  
  
He looked up at the black and white image of a man he didn’t know and yet lived with every day. A young face was a clean shave and short-cropped hair, the eyes though…there was something in them that was vaguely familiar to the way he was now. Barnes thought maybe the him then had only just begun to know pain.   
  
The panel spoke of the capture of the 107th, the long period of isolation, deprivation and torture before his rescue. Memories that the soldier himself didn’t have. It also spoke of friendship and comradery.   
  
That he thinks he does remember.   
  
He left the sates after that, it was too risky and he knew that Hydra was no doubt looking for their lost property.   
  


* * *

  
  
_“Are we gonna to talk about this?”_   
  
_They stood in an upper room of an abandoned farmhouse outside of a bombed out village. The Commandos had gone ahead to look for a tavern, leaving their fearless Captain and the Sargeant behind.  Everyone could tell there was something going on between the two of them but no one really knew what. Dum-Dum thought the two men would end up slugging it out before too long._   
  
_Steve had been tip toeing around things for a while and Bucky knew it, He explained project rebirth but never once did he correct anyone when they called him an Alpha. Bucky didn’t either because he wasn’t even sure anymore, He couldn’t get a sense of the old Steve he knew, that sweet omega that he longed for. Even though he stilled loved Steve without question, he just...wasn’t sure where this left them._   
  
_“We talked.”  Steve evaded already making a move to head down and leave._   
  
_“No you talked, now hold up a damn minute!” Bucky grabbed for Steve only to have his hand shrugged away. That hurt._   
  
_“Look...I’m…Damn it Buck, you deserve better ya always have.”_   
  
_“You’re Captain America Pal, unless ya haven’t noticed that ain’t too shabby.” He offered a smile hoping to see one in return._   
  
_Steve didn’t smile, “The serum...changed me Bucky, it changed a lot and now I’m not…I’m not normal anymore. I’m not an omega and I’m not even sure I’m an Alpha cause I still got...well you know…” He blushes and gestured down at himself._

_Barnes moved slowly, placing his hand back on his friend’s shoulder, “Then we figure this out, you and me right? Till the end of the line.”_   
  


* * *

  
  
He walks through city streets in Paris, London, Berlin and Rome. There are times the soldier has to blink away the foggy images of burning buildings and crying children. Sometimes they feel faded like old black and white images but other times…  
  
Other times when the city is dark and quiet and he walks with his head down through dimly lit alleyways- they seem to glow in color. There is no ash from bombs and littered debris in these images. They are clean fancy cars and women in too short dresses and men in well-tailored suits.   
  
He dreams of faces with single gunshot wounds between there cold lifeless eyes. Barnes wakes and feels the need to scrub his hand and scour his metal fingers with wire brushes and hot water. Because he can still smell the sour coppery tang of blood and is, so sure that it must lay between the tight lines of the plates and joints.   
  
Some days he loses track completely, he wakes up in strange places and isn’t sure where he’s been. It’s frightening because Bucky doesn’t and to turn on a light and look at his hands. He doesn’t want to see if their coated in the sanguine evidence of another crime that the Asset has committed.   
  
In these lost days and frayed hours, he loses focus, he gets sloppy and really, he would have never been this sloppy on a mission. Maybe it’s the memories that have made him weak, or that’s what he thinks when the soldier catches sight of a sleek black car out side of the hostel in Barcelona. Barnes knows they are just a distraction, the team that Hydra wants him to see. It’s the ones that he doesn’t see that are the problem.   
  
Of course he tried to run, giving up would have been pathetic. They wouldn’t reward their guard dog for coming home with his tail between his legs. Bucky was screwed eighter way so why not put the boys through the paces.

He manages to kill three of them before they take him down. 

* * *

  
 Bucky is blindfolded and beaten as they drag him naked over a cold concrete floor. The bite of leather straps and metal cuffs is chillingly familiar around his ankles, wrists and chest. He knows what’s coming.   
  
A hard plastic mouth guard is shoved between his teeth and the blindfold was torn away.    
  
He blinked away the haze and looked to his captures. The men parted as the sound of heavy boot clad foot steps approached.   
  
“Well, Mr. Barnes. It has been a long time.”  
  
Barnes stared with wide eyes, unbelieving.   
  
“Something wrong Sergeant? Seen a ghost?”  The voice intones as thin red lips stretched over a deadly smile. “No matter, your former handlers were far to complacent I see. I will not make such a mistake.” The skull said looking to his minions. “Gentleman, do your work, I want my Soldier ready for the good  Captain.”


	7. Chapter 4: The truth is more painful than any lie

_“Do all Asgardian heal this quickly, it is… amusing.”_  
  
 _His head was down, everything hurt and the shame was palpable when she came in and cleared out the Cithara generals. Of Thanos brood this one was the cruelest. Perhaps that was within her nature as …whatever she was._  
  
 _“He is not Asgardian My lady; the prisoner is of a race known as Jotnar. The Aesir call them Frost Giants.”_  
  
 _The tip of her weapon slides under his bowed chin  and lifts his head, “Well then Frost giant, and let’s see how you like my staff.”_  
  
 _As much pain as he was in Loki manages to pull his face from her grasp and spit a mouthful of blood at her feet. “So, Thanos makes his daughters from spare parts? Trying so hard to do father proud are you not Nebula. Let me tell you, fathers are never proud of their monstrous children.”_  
  
 _“SILANCE!” She screamed jamming the sharp tip of her staff into the weeping lash wounds on his back. The weapon crackling as it came to life with electrical current._  
  
 _His nerves were on fire and the world blanked out for a moment before rolling back in vibrant color. The fallen prince felt his stomach roll and empty its contents on the already filthy floor._  
  
 _“Throw him to the soldiers; let them indulge in his carcass. Maybe then he will learn some respect.”_

* * *

  
“Hold him!” Eir shouted as her patient lurched up from the bed screaming. This had not been the first time she had witnessed such an outburst, and it Loki’s weekend state it was highly  dangerous for him. She feared that omega would simple expire from the stress.  
  
“My lady we cannot!” One of the nursemaids pulled her comrades away as the ravenette’s pale skin turned blue. “The frost… it is too dangerous.”   
  
Eir raised her hands in hopes her own siedr would be enough when a heavy hand moved her aside. “My King…” she gapped as the All father stepped between her and the thrashing man.   
  
Odin clamped his bare hands on Loki’s shoulders and gently forced the younger man down. “Calm him Eir, do it now!”

The healer moved swiftly, she could already see the palms of the All-fathers hands turning red and black from the Jotun’s freezing skin. Still he held fast as her magic moved over Loki’s writhing form and sunk into his tribal lines that had begun to show in cobalt splotches over his now marred skin.. Soon the blue lost to  white and the young prince stilled under his father’s hands.   
  
“Foolish old man,” Frigga spoke softly as she moved forward to take her husband’s hands, her own magic washing over the frostbite. “Do you think this is your penance?”   
  
Odin did not meet her eyes, if there was one person who could stake away the bluster from the king of Asgard it was his wife. “If this is truly the doing of Thanos, then yes. This discomfort is but a drop in the sea.” He said looking over at the still and broken form being tended to by the healers. “Eir, I would ask of you to do whatever is necessary to save my son. If he can indeed be saved.”  
  
“I’m certain that we can, while his mind and body have been greatly damaged I have faith in the skills of my protégés. Asgard has the best healers in the nine realms my King”

* * *

  
Eir worked tirelessly to come up with a way to treat Loki effectively. Asgard, as advanced as it was, still relied on the skill of the practitioner. The fault in Loki’s mind was not some simple poison or conditioning; the young man had been twisted and changed on a level that rivaled the hand of the Norns.   
  
The healer stepped away leaving several servants to tend to the physical needs of her patient as Eir stole a moment for herself in the palace halls.  There was only one-way, it was not something Eir was comfortable with doing as it was so invasive. She would have to see what Loki saw and to do that she would have to delve into to broken prince’s mind.   
  
“Tyn, go and fetch Lady Vor, I would like to consult her on a matter.” Eir said as she walked back into the treatment wing, the young boy currently aiding in changing the Loki’s bandages nodded to her and swiftly departed on his task.   
  
Lady Vor was the wises on matters of the mind. Eir only hoped the woman would be willing to help the liar prince. 

* * *

  
“I thought perhaps there had been tragedy in the house of Odin, even the crows lower their heads in morning.”   
  
Eir looked away from her patient to the voice entering the healing chamber. Lady Vor was one of the eldest and wisest omega in all of Asgard. Odin himself had once sat upon the woman’s knee as a child and took his daily lessons from her.   
  
“One could say it is a tragedy, or rather all of this Childs life has been a tragedy.” She replied running a hand through the still princes’ raven locks.    
  
Vor lowered her gaze to the pale figure, “I would not say so, true, these recent days have been darker than most. Yet I do remember a time when young Loki would come to my home and joyfully recite his days reading lesson. Such a happy child he was, I did mourn the loss of such innocence, and more so the folly youthful jealousy.” The older woman reached out taking one of Loki’s slender hands in her own. “Perhaps if he could have seen value in himself we would not be here now.”   
  
“Yet we are my lady, you have taught me so much…all of us. Yet this is a malady that even I do not know how to cure.”   
  
The elder folded Loki’s hands and stepped away, a smile quirking her tin wrinkled lips, “Oh but you do. Simply think, you and Frigga were my best students of the healing arts I have every faith in you.”  
  
“Thor told us that Loki was using a scepter to control the minds of several Midgardian, it is clear that he could not have simply created such a weapon himself. Controlling such a thing would not have been simple. Someone gave him that scepter and taught him how to use it. Moreover, the things that he screams in hysteria …the all father is inclined to believe that it is the truth.”   
  
“Truth from the liar’s lips.” Vor said mildly, “Not that I would question the All-father; however, I know him to be the hardest judge of his own children. Are you to believe the boys ramblings as the truth? Surely even Loki is capable of grand deception is he not?  
  
Eir thought for a moment, “That he is, yet there are markings on his body, signs of great injury that has healed though left a whisper of its existence.”  
  
Vor smiled, “As I said, every faith in your ability.”

Of course, she would test her that was the old one’s ways.   
  
“My lady, if I may. Do you know of one called Thanos?” Eir knew that she should not ask things that would surely involve matters of Asgaurd might, that this could very well be talk reserved for a war room rather than a sick bed.   
  
The elder looked away, her cold grey eyes distant as they met the golden horizon outside. “Aye, and if his hand touched this child…then the fact he breaths at all is a blessing by the Norns. Thanos is destruction personified.” Vor turned her aged face away from the fading light and set her iron gaze on the healer. “You are correct that such a weapon could only be held by such a being, and that Loki while skilled with magic as he is- could not safely control such a thing. It would have controlled him.”  
  
“Then how do I undo such a thing?”   
  
It was not hard to tell how vexed the healer was. It was written in the deep lines that aged Eir’s olive colored eyes.   
  
“There is a way, for those who have suffered so.” Vor began as she made her way around the head of Loki’s bed. She places her palms at his temples and looked down at the young man’s blank face. “You will need aid from one of his kind as the siedr moves differently through the Jotnar that the Aesir. I know well a Jotnar priestess called Agraboda, she is not the biggest fan of our king but I feel she would be sympathetic to the child of her fallen kinsman.”   
  
“Even though Laufey fell by Loki’s hand?” Eir was skeptical, she was still of the belief that the frost giants could not be trusted.   
  
Vor shook her head, “It is not his Alpha that I speak but his omega, Farbauti. He was the younger brother of Agraboda, and forcibly bonded to the former king of Jotenhime. Farbauti died not long after birthing his son. I believe she only maintained her silence because she knew what Laufey would have done to an omega child. Loki would have been useless to his Sire. It would have served her brothers memory better to allow the child to live a lie than not to live at all.”   
  
“You…have known all this time my lady?” This was news to Eir, whom until then thought that she was the only one outside of the royal family who knew of Loki’s true parentage. Though in retrospect she supposes that if anyone would know it would have been Vor, she was wise and often saw things that others did not. 

“Indeed, I will contact her on your behalf after speaking with the All-father. He will need to swallow his pride for the sake of his son. Perhaps, for the sake of us all. If Thanos still has hold of Loki’s mind, then it would only be a matter of time before the terror that befell Midgard could come to Asgard. You will need to look into Loki’s mind and locate the tether of magic placed there. It is likely that the prince’s own defenses have tried which lead to his ability to survive this long with such dark coils around his siedr. Even so he is being torn apart from the inside out.” Gently stroking Loki’s temples as she spoke, silvery tendrils of magic seeping from her fingertips into his skin.  “This poor child, he has been…so defiled…” Her face twisted in pain as flashes of torture and barbarism most foul played in her mind’s eye.

* * *

  
  
Thor was waiting to receive the visitor form Jotenhime. The elder prince’s apprehension was well disguised by a bright smile.   
Ever since the death of Laufey, the political relations with the wintry realm had been strained at best. Even with Laufey’s son Helbindi at the helm- who was far more level headed than his father.  Thor was skeptical when his mother and the lady Vor sent for a Jotnar Priestess to come to Loki’s aide.  
  
Still, with everything he knew now it seemed as if this would be his brother’s only hope. Odin himself had been in meetings with his generals all morning, discussing the possibility that the titan Thanos could be making some sort of play against the realms.   
  
The golden prince only hoped that if the monster was indeed planning something that they had found out in time to stop whatever horror might befall not only the nine realms- but beyond.  
  
Golden light poured from the newly repaired bridge signaling the arrival of the priestess.   
  
“Welcome Priestess Agraboda.”  
  
Her deep red eyes regarded him with mild distaste. It was clear the Jotun was still not impressed by Asgard’s shining alpha since his last visit to her homeland. Redeemed on Midgard or not – Thor was still his father’s son. “Prince Thor. I was told the queen and her healer had need of me for the sake Loki.”   
  
The thunderer hesitated, the fact that she referred to Loki by his name and not as his brother or a prince of Asgard, was not lost on him. “Indeed Priestess, right this way.” He instructed moving out of the gate chambers and into the palace.  “Loki is very ill; I fear for not only his body but his mind. We believe he may have encountered a beginning of great power that used a weapon to twist his mind. Our family greatly appreciates your assistance in this matter.” 

“You are a poor liar son of Odin; your thanks are nothing more than thin pleasantries of one raised in a royal house. You do not trust me; it is well that you do not. I could end were you stand and not feel even a twinge of regret for your death.” She said passively as she walked alongside the alpha.    
  
Her words gave Thor pause yet he kept his pace, “No I do not, that much is true, I am not as skilled as Loki when it comes to half-truths and gilded words. I do not trust you because there is no reason that you should want to help him after what he has done to your people.”  
  
“He is one of my people.” She corrected   
  
“He may be Jotun but he is of Asgard and my brother.”  
  
The priestess rolled her eyes. “So proud little Aesir that you claim to know so much yet know so little. Perhaps Loki should have been king in your stead, ruthless as his Sire yet clear eyed to the world and its ills.”   
  
Thor did his best to hold his tongue, Jane had often said it was better to listen and wait. No matter how hard that might be at times- observation can be one’s greatest tool.    
  
Agraboda seemed mildly surprised that Thor did not have a knee jerk reaction to her statement. She had heard that the prince had matured in recent days though wished to see proof it herself. This was more than enough verification. The Jotun inclined her head and gazed down the long golden hall to the healing wing. “Or perhaps not. Your politics make no difference to me. The life of a child of my people however, that I find much more pressing.” 

* * *

  
 The priestess entered the healing room and readily greeted the lady Vor bowing her head to the elder woman. “It is good to see you, though I had hoped my reunion with my nephew would have been under happier circumstance.”

Frigga, was standing at Loki’s bedside raised her chin. Even knowing that this woman was Loki’s true family, she still felt some defiance. Blood or not this was her child. “I hope your journey was well Priestess.”  
  
“It was well enough.” her voice was passive as she approached the bed. “he would do better to not wear this false skin; if I am to aide this child then I shall see him as he is, as he was born.”  
  
“This is my son as he chooses to be, and if this is all he has left of control than I will not take it from him.” Frigga challenged. She knew how Loki felt about his true self, the shame and pain in his eyes. “I am doing my best for him, to protect him as I have failed to do in the past. I wish for your help but if you would deny him for the color of his skin then I would big you farewell and safe journey.”  
  
Eir stood off to the side of the calm confrontation; she knew well enough that these women were likely the most skilled in their use of siedr, possibly in all of the nine realms.  
  
It was then that the priestess smiled, small and crooked. “I see, I am glad that he is so loved by you. My brother would have wanted his pup to be raised by one so tenacious.” The jotun bowed her head in a show of respect. “ When do we begin.”


	8. Chapter 5: Fighting to remember, praying to forget

Blood, so much blood. The coppery tang of the sanguine substance fills his nose and mouth.  Screams of agony ring in his ears as his hand clamp down on his opponents windpipe. His blue eyes narrow in on the way their bruise mottled flesh contrasts against his metal phalanges.  The asset tilts his head as the life leaves there eyes. Something constricting in his heart begs him to stop but he know…it’s too late now.  
  
The winter soldier is groomed by Red Skull to be even more vicious than his predecessors had imagined. His training begins by killing soldiers with his bare hands and bloody cage matches with captured inhumans and mutants. Skull wanted to push his Asset and see how deadly his very own killer was.    
  
He was not disappointed, at least not at first.

* * *

  
This was the longest he’d gone without being refrozen between missions. The asset lay in his bunk staring at the darkened ceiling trying to will his eyes closed.   
  
The new chair was worse than the last, left him feeling drained, and yet too alerts all at once. When he did slip into an unwelcome sleep, it was filled with things he did not understand.   
  
_“Be nice to your sister James…”_ The woman would say, she seemed bigger than he did or maybe he was just smaller. It was hard to tell.   
  
He knew her but…didn’t, it made his heart ache to look into her bright eyes.    
  
In his dreams, her face would change, subtly at first - like watching her age. Then her hair or the shape of her nose,  but the eye always stayed, the voice remained the same. Worst of all this changing yet not changing visage of the woman he could not completely remember - always died in his dreams. Or rather, he killed the various versions of her.   
  
It was his hand behind the scope of a gun that shot the pretty brunette woman as she sat at a table at an outdoor café. His arms drenched in her blood as he held up her limp body after slitting her throat, dragging her lifeless form to dump over the side of a bridge.   
  
He could smell her perfume, like rose water.    
  
 _“James,  how is Steven? I hope he’s feeling better, Rachel! Young lady put that down!”_   
  
He’d watch her hazy image in a plain looking housedress and apron as she moved around a tiny kitchen.   
  
Then the room would fall away to a chic apartment with neon lights outside and strange music  floating from a bedroom down a hall. The walls painted black with long white leather couches.  This woman had her pale skin and bright eyes, but nothing about this one was plain. She wore garish looking hot pink lipstick and big square golden earrings. There was a man, a mission he completed and she wasn’t part of the plan.  His wife? No…daughter?…no, Mistress. She begged him to leave her, begged him and he didn’t even hesitate to snap her neck.   
  
Watching the woman laying at his feet, he felt a prickle on the back of his neck.   
  
_“I thought you better than this. This isn’t you James, it doesn’t have to be.”_   
  
He’s back in the kitchen only this time he isn’t small. The kind woman in her faded blue housedress looks so sad as she cleans the blood from his hands with her apron.   
  
_“Wake up baby, you need to wake up.”_

He does wake up, he wakes up and suddenly he knows her. Bucky wants to die all over again thinking of his mothers tearful eyes. They must have been watching because soon his room is filled with agents and he’s still too dazed to fight them off.   
  
They take him to the chair again. 

* * *

  
When they let him go, he’s taken to mission condition were his new handler straps him down and shows him pictures.   
  
It’s the man from the helicarrier, the man he pulled from the water.   
  
“Steve..” He mumbles and it given a high voltage shock for his troubles.   
  
“Wrong, this is your mission! This Avenger known as Captain America. He is an enemy of hydra and should be captured on sight unless your directive is other wise stated. Now again who is this!” The agent holds up the photo again.  
  
The asset knows what he should say, knows what will get him out of this chair but the brain to mouth reasoning fails him. Alternatively, maybe it’s some small part of him that is Bucky Barnes that looks his handler in the eye and never wavers.   
  
“Steven Grant Rogers.”   
  
It feels like lying down on an electrified fence, he can taste it on his tongue and smell the flesh when it starts to burn. After that they take him back to the chair and then and only then dose he scream because they’ve never done it so soon. It feels like his skull is being split open and his brains are scooped out with a melonballer, then all the little pieces are poured back in and stirred around.   
  
When they take him, he can’t even stand. It’s like he’s forgotten how and his handlers are even more angry.   
  
The asset is taken back to his room, left to fall into unconsciousness and let the serum heal his fried neural pathways into some sort of functioning pattern. He doesn’t dream when this happens, for the first time in weeks its nothing but darkness behind his closed eyes. He isn’t sure if that’s better or worse.

* * *

  
“Sir, the asset has been…malfunctioning.”    
  
Schmitt’s chair didn’t even turn from the window to address the minion. “ he was imperfect from the start.” it had been Von Strucker’s idea to use a beta instead of an alpha, surmising that a soldier of a natural follower nature would be easier to control. What they hadn’t counted on was Barnes  recapture from the facility in Italy. The treatments with the Hydra synthesized serum were not complete. Once reclaimed they amped up the project and Barnes transformation had been less than what they had expected. The serum made the beta into an alpha but with no fine control over it. Schmitt would have scraped the defective subject had he had the chance.   
Once Red Skull returned, he was pleased to see that the Winter soldier had been of use in the field as an assassin. A ‘Doctor Faustus’ had been pivotal in the creation of the chair and the use of physiological manipulation in order to control the wild soldier. Now it seemed that the asset was simply depleted. “ after we capture the Captain, dispose of the specimen.”  
  
  



	9. Chapter 6: Broken

Lady Eir stood before the council of Asgard; this was not the first time she had been called upon to give her assessment of one of her kingdoms prisoners. However, this would be the first time she would do so for a second time.   
  
She had spoken privately to the King, willing to give the All-father a chance to censor the information that would be shared with the council in order to save Loki’s dignity. Eir had been told to refrain from anything too personal; as there maybe some who may use such painful knowledge against his wayward son in the future. She had wondered were this concern had been before all this, yet said nothing to that effect.   
  
The council would have to be addressed if Loki was to be freed into the healers and his families care. That was her job, to insure they all understood the severity of his condition and use her standing to influence their judgment. Even the word of a king would mean nothing if the representatives of his people disagreed. In these tumultuous times Asgaurd needed to see a united front. Their world had nearly been brought to war and both of their Princes behaving unworthy of a crown. The further revelation of the youngest true nature had sent murmurs through the golden city that did not reflect well on the crown.  The only conciliation had formerly been Loki’s fall, but that too proved to be false. The insurrection on Midgard had only driven home their idea of the blood thirsty Jotun.   
  
The people had to know that the Liesmith was of no threat, as he had been perceived. That would be difficult considering many still held the image of the fallen prince as he was led into the main hall by chains and guards. Court goers that whispered and pulled their children close as whispers of ‘Monster’ and ‘Murderer’ fell from their lips. Loki’s sentence had only just calmed their fears.  Now they would be faced with the prospect of seeing the once-prince free.  
  
Eir stood before them, her face impassive and stoic as she explained her findings. “Loki was not of his own mind at the time of his capture on Midgard. He was controlled by a being far more powerful than he is and therefore not at fault for his actions against the humans. It is in not only in his  interest, but also that of the kingdom of Asgard, to stand by their prince in his convalescence.”  
  
The council looked to one another and conversed over the testimony, looking back at the healer as well as over her shoulder to the Priestess from Jotenhime. Moments before Agraboda had delivered a letter from the current king of her realm and blood brother to Loki- stating the realm was henceforth issuing pardon. Furthermore, that the Jotun people had suffered under Laufey’s reign and held no ill will toward the adopted son of Asgard. Her word had done little to ease their fear, many among them still feared the blue toned race of the frozen realm.   
  
Finally, questions began to raise. “And what of the people of Midgard?  Should they be forgotten because Loki was little more than a puppet?  His face is the one their people will recall as a concurred and killer is it not? Have we not also seen the trickster commit petty crime for the duration of his youth? Yet you say now he is not at fault due to pain of a simple mine and sweets words of some…unnamed being?” One of the council members asked.  
  
 Odin was still wearily because of Loki’s treachery before his fall. He knew it would come to this and it burned him, the look in Frigga’s eyes when she returned from the healing wing had been a knife in his heart - the knowledge that this all could have been prevented… The All father had always told his sons of honor, responsibility and duty. Perhaps he failed to listen to his own lessons.

Eir lifted her chin in defiance, a brow inclined to the council member. She was all to ready to strike back then, but it was another voice that spoke up as the Queen stood from her seat.  
  
Frigga had been  silent since returning from Loki‘s bedside. She could no longer remain so. “What if your son or daughters found themselves in the hands of a titan, a creature beyond reason who knows noting but malice and greed? Imagine what might befall them that they would take arms against a people they do not know, lead an army of monsters, and return home and ask for nothing but the axe? Would you give it to them? Would you turn your back on the babe that you held in your arms? The child that you love?”  
  
The Council had no argument left.   
  
  The final agreement was made: Loki would be treated and returned to his old quarters but would be guarded and his siedr not returned, beyond what was needed to maintain his Aesir form. The last - a request from the King himself.  Things were hard enough without forcing the fragile prince to face his heritage just yet.  The priestess frowned on this concession and assured the King and Queen that once Loki was well she expected a representative of Asgard to send word to Jotenhime.    
  
Meanwhile, someone would need to inform the Avengers. That task falling to Thor.

* * *

  
Jane knew it wasn’t good when he didn’t say anything, there was just silence and tension as he walked in to her newly furnished home in Nevada.  She hadn’t seen him like this very often, the weight of the world on his shoulders, so silently she lead him back to the bed room and divested the god.   
  
They lay in the rumpled sheets still holding one another before Thor finally spoke.   
  
“Loki is innocent.”   
  
At first she thinks maybe it’s the sadness talking, she knew things since New York had been difficult but she didn’t really know how or why. The thunderer wasn’t very forthcoming with matters on the golden realm.   
  
Then he sat up and scrubbed his hands over his face suddenly he seemed so much older than she’d last seen him. “Please talk to me…Thor, I know you think I can’t handle what ever goes on in your world but you are not alone. You can tell me.”  
  
So he did, he told her everything and for the first time since New Mexico and the invasion she realized there was a lot more to Thor’s brother than she thought. Weather his actions where fully excusable or not.. Loki wasn’t strictly the monster the world had seen.   
  
“You need to tell the others, or at least Maria. I‘ll be honest, what I have heard so far from the news. things.. well they aren’t ok since SHIELD went down . It’s not like I trusted them much anyway but now I trust them even less.  I think the only trust worth people have gone over to Starks place.” Jane said 

“The man of Iron is a good Alpha, I would expect no less from him than to open his home to our shield brothers and sisters.” Thor said finally getting up to dress, thinking over what Jane had said. “Do all of my brothers fair well? What of the Captain? Hiemdall spoke of a soldier  in black that was formidable.”  
  
Jane tied on her robe, “He’s at the tower, Sam came over to see Darcy and prove to her he was still in once piece. That was a …noisy afternoon” She said with a blush before continuing, “He said Steve was a little shaken up considering that Soldier used to be his friend from the 40’s.”  
  
The god shook his head, “There is too much grief among us. I will go to the Tower and see my friends, I shall offer them my might to ease their ills. Thank you for your council Jane.” He reached for her and pulled the mortal close  “I would be lost with out you, I only pray that my brother finds such love one day.” 


	10. Chapter 7: Lights, Camera, Action !

High-polished black jackboots clicked over the concrete floor. The sound followed by a steadier paced modern combat boot. They stopped before a mass of soldiers, faces obscured by masks. The owner of the shined leathers tugged at the wrist of his black gloves. Looking out at the able bodies at his disposal, all fodder for the cause. If all these men died it would mean nothing, it never meant anything. Only one thing had meaning and that was complete superiority.   
  
A lipless toothy grin stretched across crimson skin. “It is good to be back.”   
  
He snapped the heels of his boots and the soldiers echoed the gesture follow with a salute and a crisp “Hail Hydra!”  
  
Schmitt rocked back on his heels, eying his troops. “Hail Hydra”  
  
They were not the war harden men he’d once commanded but they would do, this new age offered much and Skull had seen much more since his disappearance after the failed attempt at domination back in 45.  
  
“There are those who would believe that Hydra! Is outdated, and they would be right. Under the cowardly direction of your former leader, we the once Feared! Once dominating! Hydra! Have been forced into the shadows to hide like rats among the noble SHIELD.  NO MORE!” Schmitt shook his fists as he paced before the group.    
  
“I fought my way back through death and time to come back to this?”  The red-faced commander paused and pulled a side arm from one of the soldiers belts, pointing the barrel squarely at the young mans face. The soldiers’ eyes went wild as he trembled.   
  
“Pathetic…” Schmitt muttered as he pulled the trigger. The spray of grey matter and blood fanning out over the faces of the men standing nearby as the body crumpled to the floor.   
  
Red skull tossed the weapon over his shoulder haphazardly; the pistol was caught by the asset and dismantled expertly in a few heartbeats. “Hydra does not fear death, Cut one head and another will rise! If you die for your cause be proud to do so. If you show fear you do not deserve to live.”   
  
He snapped his fingers and the asset came forward, un-shouldering a riffle and pointing at another soldier. This one looked straight ahead with out falter. “Very good.” Schmitt said waving off the asset.  “Your orders are simple, go forth and bring glory to the name Hydra, your handlers have there orders, and above that you have a list of targets. They include any of these so-called heroes, with the exception of one. One …is mine. Captain America, if captured will be brought to me. Dismissed”   
  
“Hail Hydra!”

* * *

The asset follows his new master, he knows he must accept the mission, all that matters is the mission.   
  
“We will be expecting the avengers lead by the Captain, if what my intelligence has told me is true, we have a leak. I suspect that address will be seen by what is left of SHIELD.” Schmitt comments, standing before the window as he looks over the scenery just beyond the base walls.  It is clear that he does not care about the facility or the soldiers. He is welcoming the confrontation with a sick kind of anticipation. “ I want the Captain and  you Asset are going to get him for me. Do you understand your directive?”   
  
“Yes Sir.”  
  
“Very good, you are dismissed.”   
  
 The rest of the day is a blur of long hallways and training grounds. Soldiers part  in the halls and shiver as he passes them like a blast of icy wind. The asset makes no indication that he notices their discomfort. Partially because he is lost in his own.   
  
That night the soldier tours the parameter of the facility, going through the woods in the dark, he knows every inch of this land in a 50-mile radius in any direction. It‘s his business to know, even so - in the jumble of memories the land tilts and skews. Somewhere behind his eyes the tree-lined pathways transform into dusty alleyways. He is brought to his knees by flashes of blue eyes, his head feels like its filled with cotton and his ears won’t stop rigging.   
  
_“You must have a damn death wish!”_  
  
 _“Bucky..”_  
  
 _“No, just don’t… what if I hadn’t been here?”_

He can see spindly limbs covered in bruises and the thought of them sucks all the air from his lungs. The burning fills his chest and he wants to beat the life out of the people who put those bruises there. Nevertheless, that’s not going to happen because …because why?  
  
Because those people are probably already dead.   
  
_“I’m with you… till the end of the line.”_ That voice.. The omega….No, the Captain…there the same.    
  
It hurts, it hurts so much.  
  
“No…can’t.. Not the mission. Not the directive. The directive..” The Asset mumbles as he struggles to his feet. Tripping along sprawling roots and underbrush, he tumbles into a meadow clearing. Falling flat on his back , the soldier  looks up at the star filled sky.  It’s so vast above, quiet yet teaming with light and life.   
  
_“You should make a wish,”_ A voice from the past says, it’s soft with a European lit. A woman’s voice, in his mind his thinks of that voice falling from red painted lips. _“The great thing about stars is that they live longer we do, they will remember us and our secrets. They see everything.”_ The words were said in passing, as if at the time, they were just words to fill the space and yet they stay. Somewhere in that hazy before that breaks him to pieces.    
  
“They see everything.” He says aloud through wind-chapped lips. The chair took so much this time, right when he thought he had it back it was all gone again like vapor. Now all he has left are the nightmares and names. All these names and yet…he thinks he’s lost his again.   
  
“Who am I…”    

* * *

 

Far away a pair of white eyes focus in on the asset and a deep voice says - “you will know soon enough Midgardian, soon enough.”

* * *

The attack is not a surprise, they were waiting or at least Skull and his Asset were waiting. The soldiers on Base and the heavy artillery were enough to divide the avengers as they attack the hidden structure.   
  
As expected the Captain fell right into the careful trap of smoke and mirrors, he followed like a lamb to the slaughter and when the first shot rang out those blue eyes knew what lay ahead.   
  
“Bucky…”  
  
The winter soldier knelt on a landing above, mask in place and eyes blank and cold. He couldn’t let that name slip, not past the directive, not past the shell that protected what was left of his shattered mind. All he had to do was capture the target. The gun was swiftly discarded and the asset leapt over the railing to face his forgotten friend.   
  
Hesitation.. Sentiment.  The good Captain was not on top of his game and the Asset knew it. He grabbed the top edged of the shield as he dropped down - rearing back with a metal fist and striking the blonde squarely in the face.   
  
The target fell back losing his footing and tumbling down the stairs,  the shield embedding into the wall,  pausing his fall. As the target looked up in a daze, the Winter soldier was already descending the stairs, blade in hand.   
  
“Bucky Stop! You don’t have to do this!”   
  
“Oh but he does Captain.” An accented voice called from above.   
  
“Schmitt” the Captain hissed, sliding his back up the wall as the Asset closed in. “Bucky’s not part of this! This is between me and you!”   
  
Red Skull laughed, “It is so much more fun this way. Seeing your comrade kill you, or perhaps…you will kill him? I would love to see the famed Captain America with blood on his hands.”

The target tried to shelter behind his shield and pushes the Asset higher up the stairwell. All the while, pleading in that all too familiar voice that made Winters skin crawl   
  
“Bucky… you know me! I know you do! If you didn’t remember you wouldn’t have pulled me out of that water!” The target shouted over the clang of the blade hitting metal.   
  
Still the Asset said nothing.   
  
With a hard shove, the winter soldier was sent against the wall of the next landing. His arms appear limp though they both know that’s just a farce. The asset is wound tight and ready to snap.   
  
“He can’t hear you Captain; my dog is a loyal one.” Skull commented.  “Asset, immobilize the Captain and bring him to me.” He said, turning his back on the pair.

* * *

His target was fast, but the Winter Soldier was lethal. The brunette had no qualms in causing as much bodily harm as possible to achieve his objective. The Captain however, did not want this to end in blood shed.   
  
Foolish…  
  
As a result, The Captain was currently holding his bleeding side with his back pressed in a corner, looking over to his shattered com.  
  
The asset had destroyed his only link to his team. The directive was now well in sight He stood there looking down at him pulling a handgun from his belt. He motioned with the gun for his captive to stand.   
  
The Captain spit a line of blood and struggled to his feet. “We can walk outta here Buck, we can fix you. Ya remember me, just think about it. I used to come to your ma’s house on Wednesday nights for dinner. Your sister Irene, she taught me how to sew so my ma wouldn’t have to keep mendin my clothes for me.”   
  
The only answer he received was the but of the handgun bashing against his temple.  
  
Mission Complete.

* * *

Skull looked down at the bound  Captain, “Are those going to hold him?”  
  
The asset nodded once.   
  
“Very well, he will make good leverage for the avengers. They would not dare move thinking their beloved Captain is in danger. Take him to the rendezvous  point.” With that, Skull stepped into a hidden elevator and disappeared.  
  
The room was deathly quiet and the Winter Soldier looked down to the bleeding captive. He frowned behind his mask and knelt down a hesitant metal hand reaching out to brush the sweaty blond hair out of the Captain’s face. There’s blood across his face and one of his eyes is swollen and blackening. Something about it…

  
  
 _“It’s not as bad as it looks Buck..”_ _The thin boy with the black eye said. However, it was as bad as it looked. The boy’s narrow chest rattled as he breathed and it worried him. Why did it worry him?  He didn’t feel things.. He didn’t feel anything._  
  
 _“The hell its not! They could have killed you and for what!” a voice shouted and the thin boy flinched. The voice.. It sounded like his but. .why?   The voice softened a fraction and a hand reached with a damp rag dabbing at the blood on the thin boy’s lips. “Silly punk…you're gonna have me worried to death ya know that?”_  
  
 _The thin boy smiled, and there was a feeling - warm in his chest…why?_

  
  
 **“GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF HIM!”**   
  
The asset looked at the metallic sounding growl. It was the one in the Iron suit,  Tony Stark ..Stark…Stark…Mission incomplete?   
  
“I said back the fuck up Robocop!” Iron Man growled.  
  
The Winter Soldier stood, stepping over the prone omega and advanced. He should have known this target was well armed.  Iron man raised a hand and the first shot hit the bicep of  his metal arm. The force enough to spin the solder off course as Iron man took a few steps into the small office and grabbed the him by the throat.   
  
The gauntlet tightened around the assets throat as her was thrown atop the desk. “Now you listen to me you bats hit crazy ass hole! You never touch him! You lost that right! I should blow a fucking hole through your skull!”   
  
“Tony… Tony please. Don’t…please don’t…”  …his target was begging for his sake.  
  
The asset struggled, his metal arm hanging useless from the repulsor blast. His remaining human hand desperately trying to lodge a knife between the side plates of the armor.   
  
The gauntlet applied just enough pressure until the asset passed out, then released.   
  
“I need containment at my location, I have the Winter Soldier.”  

 

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 8: Left bare

The treatments are rigorous in the beginning. Eir says that it is important to begin with the freshest of wounds first and work their way back to find where the control first took root.  From there they would have to find  the how, the healer had her own hypothesis that for any control to truly ingrain itself in a subject there would need to be some truth to the lie - some weakness to exploit. She believed that once the perpetrators found that they found the perfect  moment.   
  
It was now her job as well as the other healers of Asgard to back track through these hatful images in search of  the spell  that was implanted. As a result,  they would see through the young princes eyes into the most private moments. It seemed almost  wrong to go wading through the minds of others. Even more so to place Loki back in those vile moments to find where his captors made their foot holds.    
  
During these first treatments, Loki spent hours in a forced nightmare as the healers worked to undo the effects of the scepter’s control. Essentially, by accessing these memories they could leech away the imbued power that had left such lasting scars.  Unfortunately, there was the side effect. Loki  had been told he would remember, but  ‘remember’ wasn’t the word he would use for this.  This wasn’t some hazy echo of disjointed happening that his own mind interpreted. There moment recalled in stunning detail everything; it was like going back in tome relieving the torture again and again.   
  
Perhaps… Loki thought, this was punishment after all. Would it not have been kinder to let him die than to throw him back to the beasts that resided in his brain? To allow him to write and scream himself horse as he felt phantom hands on his skin and whips on his back. Would not execution have been more fitting for the hel he visited upon the mortal realm?  
  
Even so, the prince agreed. If he could perhaps die with a fraction of his sanity, he could at least go with some dignity. He said as much when Eir spoke to him of how they planed to help him. The healers face took on such grim lines as the younger man commented on his own mortality so casually.   
  
“You will not die Loki, I promise you.,” she said, touching his hands tenderly - thinking perhaps he had resigned to the fate as a way of coping with such fear.  
  
Loki regarded her aged hand quietly before turning his eyes to her. “Oh, but I had hoped so.”

* * *

  
After the treatments, Loki was a ghost, still half in the pain and half out of it. His body felt like jelly as the healers lead him away and into the waiting arms of his mother.   
  
He clung to her like a child because that was the only safe place his mind could recognize in this sea of  gloom. Her soft hands smoothed away the invisible bruises and phantom lash wounds. Her kind, reassuring voice drowned away the sound of his own screams still echoing in his head.  The screams that no one heard because he had done so behind a maniacal grin and forced words.

  
  
 **“Kneel!”** The darkness said…  
  
 _“ I said KNEEL!”_

 

Those were not his words… it was all just parroted and it made his skin crawl even know as he sheltered in Frigga’s embrace.

  
  
 **“Oh little omega… do you see? This is your …Natural State”**   
  
_“Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural State?”_

  
  
“Hush my child, I am here…you are safe now.” His mother spoke and pulled his slender frame against her. The healers had taken him to her in the garden, the place he loved so as a child.

  
  
**“You will come to crave this subjugation. You will crave everything I give you - a throne, a family, a purpose, all you have to do is obey me. You do not need freedom, there is not joy in freedom, only hunger that you will never quench.”**

_“It is the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life’s joy in a mad scramble for power.”_

  
  
She sang him lullabies as she had when he could still fit in her arms. The melodic tone and warm tingle of her siedr against his skin, she wanted to heal him even a little from a pain that had no name.

  
  
 **“You have no identity, no home, nothing. So just kneel, accept your fate and embrace the gifts that only Thanos can give you.”**   
  
_“For identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.”_


	12. Chapter 9: Catch and release

The asset woke up in a dim room with hands and feet cuffed to a chair. Some might find this concerning or even terrifying. Not for the winter soldier, he was trained to be a predator not prey. Training the enhanced alpha now relied on, as he looked through the low light at his surroundings that mindset.   
  
There was no visible door, at least not one easily identifiable by knobs, seams, or even access panels. Which meant access was purely attained from the outside, so this was not an interrogation room - those would need to have a way fro the door to seal behind an agent and then for that agent to gain egress from the cell. There seemed to no visible signs of observation - that did not mean there wasn’t something he couldn’t see of course, the lack of furniture or latrine meant this was not a permanent cell. A holding area then or transport?  No, he didn’t think so.  
  
Racking his brain for an answer, the soldier saw flashes, the target…he had secured the target but then… Then there was something else it was a blur and it made his temples ache. He fought past the haze.  Stark, the armored avenger had come.   
  
So he had been captured, there was only one solution.   
  
Termination.   
  
The asset felt around his mouth for the false tooth that contained the cyanide; he knew it would not kill him. The serum wouldn’t allow that by something as trivial as a small a amount of poison. However, his captors would no doubt rush to his aid. It would be easier to escape from a medical bay than the blank walls of this cell.   
  
It was just when he realized he was sans-molar did the door to the cell door slide open.   
  
“Looking for something солдат?” the red head asked, a small glass vial containing a capsule balanced between her fingers.

* * *

  
 **Black Widow.**  
 **Natasha Romanov**  
 **Know aliases - Natalie Rushman**  
 **Former Shield Asset**  
 **Status - Do not Engage, Live Capture if possible.**  
 **Subject Dangerous**   
  
The asset knew who she was but then, there was something else not in the report, something hazy when he looked into her eyes. 

Little girls spinning in a mirrored room. A man leading him down a hall, _“You will train the ones we deem… useful.”_ The man had said. He remembered the eyes of the children, already so cold.   
  
Looking up at this woman now, he could still see a glimmer of that chill in her eyes.  

  
“Not talkative? That’s fine because the hydra files we confiscated did a lot of talking. Are you curious to what they say about you? James Barnes?”  
  
That name, he looks up and she knows she has him now.   
  
“That’s who you are and I think you know that deep down or you wouldn’t have fought so hard to stay away from them. This isn’t you; the winter soldier is what they made you. I know what that’s like to be made and unmade, there’s always a choice.”  
  
The assets head lulls to the side, “Choice is… dangerous.”  
  
She smiles, “You don’t strike me as the shy type.”  
  
Part of him, somewhere buried the back of his mind chuckles, wants to tell her she’s right, what’s to tell her how much he wanted to spit in his handlers face.  “I’m dangerous”  
  
The widow stalks around him, she’s strong and he knows it. Maybe not stronger than him but she has something he lacks …conviction.  “Yes, you are, so we’re going to fix that.”   
  
He doesn’t even feel the hypodermic needle as it slides into his neck, just the warm gentle feeling that follows. 

* * *

“You sure that’s going to keep Robocop  down while I do this?” Tony gestures to the passed out super soldier on his worktable. “Cause if he twitches I’m clocking him with a wrench just so you know.”   
  
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Bruce commented as he walked by with a clipboard. The doctor paused momentarily to take a look at the attachment site of Barnes arm. He tisked at the inflamed skin and thick keloid scaring that sported fresh blisters that were obviously in a state of constant infection.  “What we used is a modified Hulk tranquilizer, we tested a smaller dose on Thor once, the other guy enjoyed that, anyway - this is a dose slightly smaller than that. I wanted to be conservative since his metabolism levels is a bit lower than Steve’s”  
  
Tony sat down on his stool, twisted the arm left and right, and listened for the shifting gears inside, trying to weigh his options on removal. Part of him wanted to just rip it off but that wasn’t being a good host. Considering what this person had done though he was inclined to tell etiquette to kiss his ass and break out the blowtorch. Unfortunalty, that little angle on his shoulder that sounded like a blue-eyed omega (that was currently sulking up in the penthouse) was pleading for the soldier’s wellbeing.   
  
“Yeah, seems like Hydra half-assed a lot of things.” Tony grumbled and tapt at the metal with a Philips head. “Like this monstrosity, on one end of the spectrum they were easily ahead of the game back in 45; but this damn thing hasn’t been touched since. You’d think in 70 years someone would have taken in a class on advanced mechanics. It’s got the power, I think he could take down Cap arm wresting but it’s got no flexibility.” Stark demonstrated by lifting and bending the prosthetic. “The gearing in the joints are so stiff it’s a wonder if I don’t find miss matched gears from some hack job repairs.”   
  
Bruce nodded and stepped closer to eye the shoulder, “Damn, it looks like there might be some rudimentary nerve wiring, how did they even have that kind of tech back then?”   
  
“They don’t even have it now Brucy, not in public circles. I hear there is a guy though, Holden Radcliff, into some spooky enhancements for people willing to pay for them.”   
  
The doctor eyed the alpha while he worked, “And you know about him how?”  
  
“I make it my business to know, also he was on SHIELDS radar and you know, I like to read while I’m in the can. Hey Dum-e, bring me that modified gauntlet I was playing around with, the Blue Steel mod.”  
  
The mechanical helper wheeled over an odd-looking gauntlet and Bruce started to protest, “No way you are not shooting it off!” 

“Will you relax, no seriously buddy, relax cause I have a lot of expensive shit in here. I know what I’m doing, this is a little play on a high-power mini laser I had on an older armor.”   
  
The beam was thin and white hot, still it managed to slice through the elbow joint like hot butter.    
  
“There see? Now I can get up in this gnarly bitches undercarriage and have a look around.” Tony said setting the gauntlet aside, “Plus I don’t want to wait around for your super roofie to wear off and then cyborg crazy will get all indignant and make me bust his ass again.”

  
“Right, I’ll just keep going over his charts, let me know when you get that off, I have a feeling what;s underneath isn’t going to be pretty.” 

* * *

  
Of course, Bruce was right, it wasn’t pretty. They also had to put Barnes under again when the man woke up screaming just as the shoulder cap was removed. Apparently it had triggered some sort of hidden kill switch that Tony had to work fast to disable.    
  
It would have to be that moment when Steve had come down to check on things.   
  
Stark was out of the lab and steering the omega away while Banner and Simmons did their thing.   
  
The scaring and infection was in a constant state of healing against Barnes version of the serum. The connection to his central nerves system and the workings of the arm were …barbaric at best. Bruce assumed from the blood testing that in addition to the serum there were also heavy concentrations of narcotic painkillers. He had originally thought they were part of the control methods Hydra was using; now he was sure they had just been practical.

“There is no way he could have gone more than a few weeks without experiencing some kind of withdrawals, hallucinations, you name it. The wiring while…years ahead by means of prosthetic limb response - was in no way implanted with patent ease in mind. The mounting it self was obviously too heavy and cause additional lesions.” Bruce had to stop as he was looking a little grayish green and had to excuse himself.   
  
Simmons steeped in, “The sergeant is now resting, we were able to remove all of the additional components and clean away any signs of necrotic scar tissue. I suspect with his healing capabilities that now the site is clear of obstruction the amputation site should heal over tentatively by morning. However, I would like to make sure that he has a protective sleeve until all of the tenderness and swelling has gone away.”  
  
It was a lot to take in, but it was a step in the right direction. 

* * *

  
  
It took a few days of discussions to decide what to do with Bucky. The talks ranged from the unthinkable to the down right cruel. The whole situation was completely fouled up. From the moment the soldier had woken up in custody Barnes had been combative with mere moments of lucidity, it was hard for Steve to watch.  Even harder for Tony to see the omega’s destroyed expression.   
  
Add to all the things Hydra had done, their serum proved all kinds of strange in comparison to the one that ran through Steve’s veins. According to Bruce, whatever Hydra’s serum had in it, it had been able to do one thing that Erskine’s could not. It created an Alpha.   
  
All testing confirmed that the once beta Barnes was now an alpha - with such elevated testosterone and adrenal levels it was as if the Asset was activated into a constant state of aggression verging on rut.  He reeked of power and strength.  Medically suppressed omega couldn’t be around Barnes; even Coulson with his will power of steel quietly excused himself.  That seemed to put a bur in the saddle of quite a few of the alphas - Tony included. 

* * *

  
When Bucky woke up they had to sedate him again, Steve saw them do it and it killed him. Watching the man thrash as people held Barnes down, watching that brief moment of fear flashing in Bucky’s pale eyes.   Part of him wanted to go in and help, try to calm Bucky down. Natasha told him no, said it would just make things worse if Bucky saw him.   
  
“He’s still feeling whatever Hydra did to him, waking up with no arm in a strange facility is already a lot for him. I know he’s your friend, but what he needs right now is to adjust some place dark and quiet. Barnes needs to let this settle in his head before we try anything.” She made a convincing argument, of course she had. 

Thor was the one who offered the best option. Steve didn’t want Bucky thrown in a prison or some mental ward, but it was clear he couldn’t just be let lose. There was some talk of cryostasis, seeing his friend frozen just sent Steve’s teeth on edge. He hated thinking of the cold… Of freezing.  
  
“Perhaps, the healers of Asgard may be able to quell the chaos in the sergeant’s mind?”   
  
Everyone looked up and thought it over, it wasn’t a terrible idea. Turning Bucky over to an off planet ally would eliminate the possibility that he could escape and wreak havoc or be compromised by a hydra agent in disguise. After all, if hydra could infiltrate SHIELD, what said they couldn’t already be in the government on other levels?   
  
Thor sat back watching the faces of his teammates, “Lady Eir has made much progress with my brother, while it is trying at times I can say that he is closer to being the man he was before he was controlled. Asgard has means of treatment not available to this realm.”  
  
“You would do that for Bucky?” Steve was almost afraid to hope.   
  
The thunderer smiled and put a heavy hand on the omegas shoulder, “For you friend Steven, I would indeed. Son of Barnes is your shield brother, I understand your pain and would do my utmost to alleviate it.”  
  
“So Robocop goes to god club med and then what?”   
  
Steve flinched slightly at the billionaires tone.   
  
“He will be treated; if he cannot be healed then the Lady Eir will find a way to ease his anger. Even if his mind is lost he need not be a danger.” Thor knew from the look on his own mothers face that Loki might suffer a similar fate. 

“Jesus Christ…” Clint muttered rubbing his palms over his face, “What does that even mean? Shit sounds like an alien lobotomy”   
  
Steve knew what that was; the lobotomy was just coming in to practice when he was a teenager. “T-that’s not …What you mean is it?”  
  
The thunderer just seemed confused, to which Bruce proceeded to explain the barbarism of early psycho-surgery. The Asgardian found the tactics both disturbing and sad.   
  
“No, I would never allow such harm to come to any man, no matter his past actions. I cannot speak to a healer’s craft, but from what I have seen from my own brother - Lady Eir is efficient. I know that you are still very skeptical of him after what he has done, but much like the Captain’s friend Son of Barnes, Loki was not aware of his actions. There are many men with hate in their heart who would use others as pawns.”   Thor said before sitting back down.   
  
True, they had all listened to him speak about Loki, the recent discovery that the raven haired god of mischief had been nothing more than a psycho puppet in a bigger plot had been disturbing to put it mildly. Not everyone had beloved it until Coulson was able to dig up some footage of Loki’s arrival and show the gods luminous Blue eyes. While the avengers were not ready to roll out the red carpet and let bye gone be bye gone (Clint actually stormed out of that meeting) they did agree that Loki was not entirely at fault for what happened.   
  
Just like Tony’s parents, New York and her inhabitants that perished during the invasion were still never coming back. No mater who was at fault, the face of the perpetrator would always be linked to those feelings of grief, fear, anger, and loss.  Each of them had demons covered in blood tucked back in the closet. Tony made weapons for years that killed countless innocents; Natasha had been an assassin and killed for people who had nothing but bad intentions. Thor had acted rashly for centuries and reveled in war, Bruce. Well Harlem - nuff said.  No one was blameless, they all did things in the name of a cause or some misguided loyalty.   
  
“This what you want?” Tony asked, gently slipping his hand around Steve’s wrist under the table.   
  
The omega thought for a moment, it really was the best option they had and while it would hurt sending Bucky away again. In the end, his friend may have some chance at a life. “Yes. We will extradite Bucky to Asgard’s under grounds of criminal insanity. If he cannot be treated then… We cross that bridge when we get there.” 

* * *

Barnes…The Asset…who ever he was, he wasn’t sure all the time. For now though, he felt like James Barnes. He doubts he will ever fell like ‘Bucky’ ever again, that part of him feels to clean and distant, like a nice dream or faded photo. Still, maybe there is part of that person left because it hurts to see Steve and Stark together.   
  
He noticed the way the shorter alpha’s hand wandered into the small of the omegas back, the way Stark took a subtle step forward to put even a fraction between them when Romanov brought him out of the safe room. He didn’t see either of them after that.   
  
Even when  he was told he was leaving with this one guy wearing a cape who is apparently a ‘god’ or ‘alien’ …something.  The pair were no where to be seen and James seemed to know by the way the others stayed quiet that Stark was some where with Steve…together.   
  
So that was the score.   
  
Barnes couldn’t put words to why that made his skin crawl and his gut twist painfully. He wanted to blame it on a lot of things - guilt, shame, self loathing. Who the hell knows because he can’t pay attention for more that an hour at a time with out slipping down a rabbit hole.   
  
Fucking Hydra.


	13. Chapter 10: Welcome to Asgard

Bucky was never  one of the kids who read dime store comics, or took the time to sit with a book and be wrapped up in heroic fantasies. Even when he was out on a mission he never took in a film or did anything that wasn‘t for the mission. You didn’t have to have a great imagination to be an assassin. Just the opposite actually. Bucky had spent years living in nothing but shades of gray and suddenly the world was full of color.  
  
That being said, first impressions of Asgard brought him right back to that back pew of Monday night Mass, listing to the priest go on and on about a place in heaven with streets of gold. He could remember flashes of a woman, she had…reddish-blond hair and her voice was light but strong.  She was with the omega with the blue eyes …Steve. If he thought hard he could almost see her standing there with that light hair in a loose bun and curls falling around her temples. He could see her holing a hand to Steve’s  brow or wrapping up a bit of bread and making him promise to take it home.  
  
The memory made his head ach and stomach turn, or maybe that was from the intergalactic travel.  Not to mention they were standing on a fucking rainbow and how the hell is that even a thing?  
  
Still; looking around at this gleaming world, he could  see the woman in his minds blurred eye; she sang a song while seated next to a bed. He had brought her a bowl of water and a rag. His mother had been there two, in the kitchen measuring out medicine.   
  
Who was sick?  He doesn’t remember because that portion of the memory is all glowing edges and whiteout silhouette. However, her voice is still there to this day.

  
  
_“What good is gold and silver too? If your heart’s not good and true, sinner hear me when I say: fall down on your knees and pray.”_

 

His heart would never be good or true, now with all this blood on his hands.   
  
“Sergeant, how do you fair?”   
  
Bucky was drawn from his thoughts and looked up to the man who had brought him here, Thor - that’s what the others called him. “It’s just um… yeah I’m fine.”  
  
The blond nodded and led the way, “I’m sure you have never witnessed such beauty as that of Asgard. Truly her people are blessed by the Norns to live in such a place. I welcome you here to my home and know that with time you too will come to love this land. As your mind heals you will be able to appreciate it even more. Perhaps then I shall introduce you to the warriors three and we can all drink and regale one another of the glory of  battles past!”   
  
“yeah.” 

* * *

  
The tour of Asgard  was a long one with tons of history (mostly bloody) that honestly meant nothing to the soldier or his wondering mind. Nothing in the decorative tapestries or sculptures that Thor droned on about. They were all just things, gaudy things actually. Something did itch somewhere in the back of the alpha’s brain that said some one would really love this. Someone else would love to pull it apart and see how it all worked. The distant murmur of laughing around a tavern table and playing cards tossed into a bowler hat. Unfortunately, even those images meant little to the former Asset.   
  
Every step of the way , clad guards that followed them - not that the one armed soldier looked as though he posed much of a threat. However, Barnes was still a foreigner in their land and technically a prisoner in the care of their prince. So he could understand their presence as the pair moved through the halls of the grand palace.   
  
Finally it came time to enter his “chamber” as Thor had called it.  Apparently the door could only be opened from the outside - so his prison was a fancy one. Inside, the room looked like any other bedroom, with the exception of the over the top Viking furniture. Still, there was a bed, chair, desk, attached bathroom and a wardrobe.  Better than any other accommodations he had in the past. 

“A seamstress will come with a guard to take your measurements. You should rest yourself Sergeant, the journey on the bifrost can be very taxing for mortals- even one such as yourself. For your first night you will take your meal here, at least until Lady Eir can assess you properly. Should you have need of anything simply knock on the door and the guard will address any request with in reason.  Also, I will warn you but once Sergeant.” Thor paused drawing his shoulders back, “While you are a guest here, you are here to heal your mind and once you have come back to yourself you will have a debt to pay. Even deeds incurred by a tarnished mind must be answered for.”  
  
“yeah, I figured that. The thing is I don’t think I have enough left to pay back.”    
  
The blond nodded and looked thoughtfully down the hallway to some unseen location. “It may seems that the scales are not in your favor, it may even appear as hopeless and dark as hel itself. Yet never has any man been beyond redemption if his heart truly desires to do right.”

* * *

  
His first night hadn’t gone well, Barnes mind wouldn’t settle and the night hours came with flashes of death and pain. He spent most of the night awake laying in the sweat sodden sheets just trying to breath. The phantom limb making his shoulder tingle as he imagined the metal fingers flexing around the hilt of a blade or gingerly pulling a trigger.  Show easily the false limb clasped around a thin fragile neck.  
  
By the time first light trickled through the curtains, James was some were between wake and sleep in a murky world of muted sounds and color.  This was the safe place, the place he remembered from coming out of cryo. This was the first hour after the thaw when the asset was placed in a cell alone.  A place where his heartbeat was still slow and his breaths heavy and labored.  It was not exactly relaxing or painful it just…was. Maybe that’s what made it so awful, because this was a limbo of nothingness.  
  
Morning’s light brought the change of the guards and  the new set  had knocked before opening the door and found  the soldier in this strange pliable state. One shouted for him to move and received no reaction. Another reached out; this was not the smarted thing to do. The Asset launched up kicking at the guard and rolling off the bed landing neatly on bare feet in a crouch. The Einhijar rose their weapons to strike back at the combatant prisoner.   
  
 Thankfully, the soldiers host was nearby.   
  
“Do not strike him, stand aside!” Thor entered the room looking to the feral mortal on the other side of the room. “Sergeant Barnes?”  
  
The asset turned his head away and shivered at the address. 

 

 **Mission unclear.**  
 **Target.. unknown**  
 **Location.. unknown..**  
 **Danger -High**

  
“James Barnes, you are on Asgard by the decree of the Avengers of Earth. You were taken from the villains known as Hydra and are here in my care to seek recovery. Do you understand?”   
  
Understand… the mission ?  No, there was no mission. Barnes looked around in the too bright room surrounded by people and things he didn‘t know and then he looked at himself. “..the arm…” He spoke with a strained rough voice.   
  
“it is gone, removed for your protection as well as others.” Thor said, lifting up his hands as if placating a wild animal.  
  
The asset, no Barnes, straighten up and looked at the bandaged stump of his shoulder.  It was gone, they ..the avengers took it off, this man was one of them. The omega - Steve, he was one of them.  Stark had taken off the arm, Stark who put his hands on Steve.  He didn‘t understand but he had to accept these things because really, nothing made sense anymore. “Ok…”

* * *

  
“Right this way.” The girl who met them at the healing wing looked to young to be a nurse…or whatever she was.  “Lady Eir has finished up with the prince and is ready to see Sergeant Barnes.”   
  
Eir, did all these people have such weird names? Than again no name seemed to fit him anymore, it was all just noise and haze.   
  
The ‘doctor’ he supposed that is what she was, though on Asgard they called her a ‘healer’, was nice enough. She was older or at least looked it, there was really no way to know in this place. Eir has no nonsense kind of manner about her and an innate kindness. Never once did he worry what would happen when the guards steeped aside. The way this woman carried her self  in such a way that  she seemed more than capable of handling him - even at his worst. 

“This must all be very strange to you.” She spoke and gestured for him to lie back on a long wooden table. “This is called a soul forge, we use it to see the flow of energy through the body to better assess any damage that may lay unseen.”   
  
“Is this what you’re gonna do to my head?”   
  
She smiled and shook her head, “No, our healers have another technique for that. I merely want to be certain that you are strong enough for treatment. It is very important that the rest of your being is functioning well before we begin. The process is not an easy one and you will need that strength.”   
  
Barnes relaxed and breathes as  lights danced above him. “What if  you can’t fix me, what if the damage just can’t be fixed.” he had to ask because…well because he needed to know while he had a slight moment of clarity. He needed to know that there was a contingency.  
  
He couldn’t ever be the Winter Soldier again, he would rather die.  
  
Eir motioned around the light turning it this way and that. “I have seen worse.” 

* * *

  
Barnes was given a clean bill of heath and scheduled to begin his treatments the following day. The healers told him to rest and prepare himself by clearing his mind of aggression if possible. They said the treatment would work more efficiently if he were calm.   
  
Easy for them to say, no one was going to be messing around in their brain.   
  
He had to be shown back to his room; this place was like a maze with its many halls and steps leading to who knew were. On his way back walking through the palace, Barnes  catches sight of a garden and pauses a moment to look out on the fountains and trees.   
  
“This is her Majesty’s flower garden; it is the pride of Asgard. The queen has a collection of plants from nearly every realm in this garden.” A servant girl who had been tasked to follow the guards said. She gestured to the expanse of flowering trees and bushes. “I believe the ones from Midgard are called Rosa Eden, they are very beautiful are they not? ”  
  
Barnes squinted his eyes looking around the fountains and out in the distance, where he sees two figures partially hidden by the weeping limps of a willow. A woman in fine robes sitting with a frail looking man in her arms, his long black hair contrasted against her own soft silver colored clothes. She tenderly cradles his face and speaks softy as any mother would to their ill child. 

A soft cloying scent floats in on the warm breeze - floral and clean with something underneath, like damp earth and cloves. Sweet and yet broken…  
  
 “Yeah…they are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I know that “ A house of gold” the Hank Williams Hymn that I am referencing here was not written until 1954, but I honestly don’t care. The lyrics worked for what I was going for more so than some other hymns that would have been contemporary to the late 30’s. Flame comments will be used to roast marshmallows then deleted.


	14. Chapter 11: Tea with monsters

It’s hard to be positive about something when you see the last guy stumbling out looking like death warmed over.   
  
Barnes arrived at the healing wing with the guards and saw the raven-haired omega he’d spotted in the garden. This was suppose to be Thor’s brother but they looked nothing alike, he supposed there was more to that but it wasn’t information he was privy to. The winter soldier had been in cryo during the attack on New York that had been apparently perpetrated by the wayward omega.   
  
Looking at the guy now; Barnes found it hard to believe   
  
He turns his head letting his eyes follow the retreating form of the Queen and her younger son. That is until a guard steps in his way and glares him into forward motion.   
  
The guard isn’t the only one who noticed his lingering gaze.   
  
“The prince has a…extensive case.” Eir says as she places a hand on his back and steers him over the threshold. Do not allow yourself to become to overly concerned with others Sergeant.”  
  
James was not looking forward to this; it wasn’t like he had the greatest experiences with doctors or scientists of any kind. He was just happy this was a table and not a chair. There was no way he would have been able to handle that.   
  
“How does this work exactly?” The mortal asked as he hoped up onto the table and laid back.   
  
Eir motions for her fellow healers to the table as she spoke. “Here on Asgard we  treat the body in its purest form. When you first came to us, we use the soul forge to inspect the energy that flowed through your body. The mind much like the body is made up of pathways, however even the soul forge can not dig deep enough into these pathways to see what truly lies there.”    
  
Other healers lowered the lights in the room and began to place glowing stones around his head. This all seemed strange and yet… the subtle hum from the stones some how felt calming. Like a warm breeze tickling his face and the sound of wind through the trees. There was something old and comforting about it as the feeling washed over him.   
  
“The mind is like an ocean, with the deepest parts hiding the wounds in our past and the banks our present. In order to see these things we have to go back to the old ways. Only a siedr wielder with complete control in the healing arts can tread through these paths. “   
  
Eir moved to the head of the table and her fingertips fell lightly to his brow. “Today they will wade the shallows sergeant Barnes. Once you understand your present you can drift easily into your past.”   
  
Light encompasses his vision and the solider sleeps. 

* * *

  
_It is like standing in the eye of a tornado. The locomotive like roar of the rising winds drowns out everything until your ears just crackle and bleed. All the times his handlers forced him into the chair, every gunshot wound, every stabbing, every broken bone. It was all culminated and magnified as images swirled around his head. Moments in time encapsulated in blinding light as they raced passed and blurred into nothing.  He wanted to scream, to beg for it to stop but nothing escaped from his raw throat but gasps. The air then torn away from his burning lungs by these unforgiving torrents of wind._  
  
 _The soldier, the asset, the man, the friend, the alpha, the beta, the murderer, the assassin, the…. What?_  
  
 _He falls to his knees and felt completely stripped of it all._  
  
 _There was nothing_  
  
 _He was nothing._  
  
 _When he blinked away the pain the world was suddenly …nothing._  
  
 _Blank white and silent._  
  
 _Yet, not empty._   
  
_There in the center of this nothing, as if glowing and vibrating with all the life left in the world was the one thing he never wanted to see again._  
  
 ** _The Chair._**  
  
 _Why._  
  
 _“You know why James.”_  
  
 _He struggled and turned to the voice. There standing in her best dress, the one he had bought for her 16th birthday, was Rebecca Barnes. He knew her, how did he know her? When he knew nothing else?_  
  
 _“Because we’re blood Jamie, you no one can take that from us. I know you don’t want to be here but ya haft’a, didn’t that Mr. Churchill say something’ like that? ‘We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those that would harm us.’ “She paused and walked to face him. Touching where his shoulder ended and left nothing but empty air.  Smiling sadly her fingertips trailed across his chest and up to cradle his face._  
 _“You done us so proud Jamie, ya went over there and did us all proud. Now ya gatta help yourself, your gonna haft’a be strong once again because I can’t tell you what I don’t know. I know my brother, but you know who he was after.”_  
  
 _“Will I see you again?”_  
  
 _He could still smell that sweet perfume she wore when she wrapped her arms around his neck. It was the same their mother had on her vanity and Becca always snuck in to dab a little behind her ears. Essence Rare by Hubigaunt.  “When it’s time for it. So fight hard to get back; ok Jamie?”_  
  
 _And just like that, she was gone._   
  
_There was only one way out of this, one way back… so James Barnes sat down in that damnable chair and laid his head back and the latches snapped over his wrists and ankles. He tried his best to breathe as a phantom gag slipped between his teeth and the light around the room grew brighter and brighter._  
  
 _Red Skull, the hidden base. They wanted to capture the Captain. He remembered the metal stairs and each office; he remembered the low backed leather chairs in Johan’s office and the old man with the dark brows and white hair who had arrived with important information. Merik was his name._  
  
 _Barnes walked through the shifting memory as it slowed and sped in different spots. Like an actor on stage of the wrong play. There was nothing he could do but watch, and perhaps most troubling was watching himself. Watching the dark eyes and dead stare of a man that wore his face.  Watching that man in the very same chair that brought him here, in a cell, in a cage …killing.  Watching as the winter soldier fought Captain America, as Iron Man subdued him._  
  
 _James caught see the subtle twitches and changes in his own posture from the moments he could recall and those he could not. Moments when he was nothing more than the asset and it sickened him._  
  
 _The memories melted, faded, and grew older. He was in Barcelona when the Agents came to apprehend him; he had run away after….there, there in the distance where another memory was forming. He ran toward it through the violent take down in Italy and toward the bridge of the helicarrier._  
  
 _“Bucky…please…” Steve; he pulled him out of the water after they fought because he remembered him._  
  
 _“Till the end of the line.” The bloodied face of the captain faded away and James stood in a dark cell in front of a chamber, in front of himself as men in uniforms, his handlers, came and opened the frozen chamber.  He watched as his handler, Pierce…he had not been his handler in so long. Barnes seemed to understand that fact and even the asset knew it for a brief instance._  
  
 _“It’s been a long time Asset, are you ready to serve?”_  
  
 _The voice was his, “Ready to receive mission guidelines Sir.”  However, it was darker, colder than he was._

* * *

  
“wake up Sergeant.”  
  
Barnes felt like he was going to vomit when his eyes blinked open in the healing room.   
  
Eir smiled and motioned for her healers to approach, the women began wiping his brow and releasing restraints. “You did well, very well for your first day. You will return to your quarters and rest for now, do not be alarmed if you experience vivid dreams, however I have instructed your guards to provide you with a sleeping drought should your dreams become to intense for rest.”  
  
“Thanks…”James tried to sit up and felt his head spin.   
  
Eir gently wrapped an arm behind his back and waited until he had righted himself. “You may also experience what is known to the Midgardians as vertigo.”  
  
“Do tell.” he snarked easing his feet onto the floor. “Feels like getting hit with a grenade…”   
  
The woman blinked at the wording, they obviously did not have that sort of thing here. “Lightening?”   
  
“Ah, yes that is common.”

* * *

  
This time on his way back to his quarters, Barnes made a point to pause at the gardens once again. Just as before he looked out and saw the second prince - head in his mothers lap.  
  
“How many brain things has he had?” In all honesty, Barnes was simply curious if this was where he was headed. Drooling into some servant girls skirts.   
  
The young woman sighed and looked out onto the gardens. “Prince Loki has simply… given up. I feel poorly for how I once thought of him, how most of us thought of him. He has truly suffered in his life and the ignorance of others has been the highest maltreatment.”  
  
Looking out at the younger prince something about the omegas thin and drawn appearance while laying there at his mother feet, mad a something in the soldier wants to help. Some kind of nostalgia that made his heart warm and eased the ache in his head. Like maybe, he was capable of doing something good again.   
  


* * *

  
The treatments continue daily and just as always Barnes finds himself lingering after. Until one day, he notices the prince is not with the queen as he usually is. His own guards have grown lax the last few days and left him to his own with just a young servant girl from the healing wing.   
  
The girl is kind and has no doubt noticed the alphas interest. She laughed behind her palm and sits down on a stone bench. “Go on, it looks as though Sigyn could use some help with him.” She said motioning to where Loki seems to be having an argument with a frustrated little blonde girl.   
  
  
“You have to eat, how will you ever keep your strength?”  
  
Loki rolled his eyes and looked to the tray of tea, fruits and other finger foods. “I told you Sigyn, I have no desire to sit here and preen over these like some kept little prize. I am Odin’s prisoner am I not?”   
  
Sigyn growled and clenched her fists, “With all due respect master…..”  
  
“I am no longer your Master.”  
  
Evidently, that straw broke the camels back.   
  
Tears gathered in the younger omegas eyes as she shouted. “Fine then you pompous little brat! I want you to eat because you look as though a strong wind could very well carry you away!” Her voice gathered strength with each pained word. “I do this because I care for you! I do this because I wish for your health to return to see the Loki I used to know!”  
  
“He is dead, run along Sigyn.”   
  
Barnes approached as the girl turned and fled, tears streaking down her face and she past him. The alpha frowned at the display and quickens his pace.   
  
“Was that really necessary? Making her cry like that?”  
  
Loki glanced at the mortal and did not answer, he returned to his reading as if the mans voice was nothing more than a buzzing insect.  
  
Barnes put one hand on his hip as he marched over to lean against the tree the prince was shading under.  Looking down at the omega, he could see the dark circles beneath intelligent green eyes, hollow cheeks and far too pale complexion.  For this to be Thor’s brother they sure looked different. Not to mention the reputation that precedes the younger son of Odin - Dangerous, maniac, traitorous monster, prolific liar. This guy seemed far too docile for that. Maybe he was a bit of a jackass but that was not a crime.   
  
Then again, the prince was having the same treatments as he was-  so there was more to this story. More that the halls of Asgard did not speak of in mixed company.   
  
A warm fragrant breeze rustled through the willow branches and catches a few strings of raven hair around the prince’s face.  He still seems to not care that he has company and this place seems just as well as the next, so James sits down and leans his head back against the rough bark.   
  
Glancing from the corner of his eye, he watches the omegas long slender fingers as they turn each page. The nails are bitten and knuckles slightly swollen and scabbed.   
  
Something in the soldiers mind triggers the image with that of a young girl he once knew.  She was slender and pale, the second asset of Hydras making.  Her serum hadn’t been perfect either and the result left the girl high strung and unpredictable.   
  
It was 1961, he remembered because it was the only time a target government had ever caught them. They were in London, and she messed up everything. He still remembers that empty haunted look on her waif face as she held the revolver up to her temple and pulled the trigger. The way the blood splattered on the sheer white curtains, soaking them all the way through. He had left her there, taking her weapons and ripping the patching from her clothing before making a run for it.   
  
Later, he was praised for keeping the connection with hydra safe. The British Authorities released that they had found a soviet spy ring and nothing more.   
  
Barnes let out a ragged breath as he came back to himself, looking up he found those brilliant viridian eyes staring at him.   
  
The prince nudged over the tea tray and James took one of the goblets and quickly drained its contents.  He sets the glass back down and motions lamely to the pitcher. “It ain’t like I can pour it myself.”  
  
 Loki hesitates, he had not actually looked at the mortal that closely, he knew who this man was of course. Thor had mentioned something about a Midgardian; it’s just now that he sees the man has only one arm.  He doesn’t know why other than shock maybe, but pours the glass and then one for himself.  They sit there and drink tea together in silence. 

* * *

  
The next day when the mortal appears again, two glasses are already poured and waiting on a low table under the tree.   
  
Frigga had asked Loki to be kind. She said that this man, this…James Barnes, was likely the only person in this realm who knew how Loki felt. That it would be good of him to try to be friendly to the mortal.   
  
Loki told himself that he didn‘t care, he was a monster with no need for companionship.  There was only one reason he was sitting here at all.   
  
 “she always makes too much.”  He said gesturing to the table. “Sigyn, she dose not listen. “   
  
Barnes just nods and sits down to help himself. Just like the day before they do not speak, until the silent prince pins him with a look that the soldier cannot read. There is something so desperate about it.   
  
“How many people have you killed?”  
  
“Can‘t remember.” the mortal returns popping a grape into his mouth, thinking as he chews the little berry. “I remember their faces though, a lot of faces but no names and no exact number. I don‘t know which is worse. .   
  
“Do you regret all of them? Could there not have been some that deserved their fates?” Loki asks. 

The brunette shrugs, “I’m not sure, I can’t remember why, and they were just on my list. I was good at following orders.”  
  
“I was not…” Loki whispers more to himself and Barnes does not comment on that.   
  
Instead, the soldier asks, “Do you have regrets?”  
  
The omega doesn’t take long to think, his long fingers picking apart a crescent of bread. “Only one, that I did not die.”


	15. Chapter 12: Leaving the past where it belongs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This video shows a lot of interaction that I feel fits this chapter so enjoy!“   
> https://youtu.be/4J2HGwOkn1E

The royal chambers had been quiet as a tomb in the passing weeks. It was clear to everyone, including the King, that the frosty attitude of her majesty the queen would not be thawing anytime soon in this silence. It may have even continued if not for Odin learning of Loki’s new companion.  
  
To say the All-Father was displeased would have been a mild and flattering commentary on sheer ire it gave the old god.   
  
Frigga paid no attention to the heavy footfalls entering her private sitting room. She had retired to the small sanctuary after the morning court meetings. This place was her refugee during the worst of times and her temple in better times. Odin should know better than to disturb her here.   
  
The queen’s gaze focused on the view of the garden and its occupants who were slowly walking along the cobbled trails.  It was so nice to see her son smile even briefly as it may be. The life returning to him after these months of pain. No, Maybe the truth was it had been years of pain that lay around his shoulders. She knows Loki has not been well for so long and that failure falls at her door as much as anyone else’s. They should have never lied to him as they had and perhaps this could have been avoided.   
  
“Do you intend to avoid me for the next century?” her husband’s voice called from the balcony entrance.   
  
She did not move from her seat or even turn her head in acknowledgement. “If the mood suits me.” Frigga replied.  
  
The alpha narrowed his remained eye and clenched his fists. Why must every omega in his life insist on being so difficult! “what would you have me do? Beg? I am the King of Asgard not some lowly thrall pleading for your attentions. You will listen to me Frigga.”  
  
“Are you done posturing now oh husband of mine?” Her teasing tone dismissive to his irritation. She could do this all day if he wished.   
  
The old man growled and stormed in front of her, gesturing out on the gardens. “Do you think this a game? You send the mad mortal out to be Loki’s keeper? Is the palace of Asgard little more than an asylum for the nine realms?   
  
“You allowed him here Odin; do not behave as if this is some great scheme plotted at your expense. The sergeant is no more a keeper than the servants that your own guilt sent to aid Loki.” Her eyes cold as she regarded her husband. There was once a time she would have never spoken to him in such a manner. Those days were gone, too long had she stood silent and watched her children suffer.   
  
“I allowed him here to secure positive relations with Midgard after Loki, our so, led an army against them! I am the protector of the nine realms… And I - !”  
  
“NO! Odin Borson.” Frigga shot from her chair, finger pointer under her husband’s nose. “Do not speak to me about how well you protect the nine realms when you couldn’t even protect one boy. I know what happened on the bridge that day, I saw it. He looked to you for any shred of acceptance and all you could give him was NO!”    
  
At least he had the good sense to look regretful under her iron gaze. “I admit my failings as his father but it was not for lack of trying Frigga. I brought that child here to save him… to save you. “  
  
There was the truth of it; it was not really to secure relations with Jotenhime or even out of kindness to a small abandoned child. He did this for her, for all the pups that never drew breath in her arms. For the empty cradle that sat near their bed, for his omega who stared aimless for days.  Odin saw that child alone, lost, and thought of a mother who was much the same. Selfishly he brought that boy and placed him in her arms- knowing full well she would fall in love.  Odin was a selfish man like any other.   
  
“I mourned him, I morn him still when I see what was done to him. I am a coward and cannot even bare to aid Eir in her efforts, if that man knows even a fraction of that same torment then why not allow then to share such common ground? Why not let Loki have one constant who can understand his pain? Would you deny him yet again?” voice trembling as she spoke. Her scent of lilies grew acrid in her distress.   
  
For once in his exceedingly long life, Odin had nothing to say. No pearls of wisdom nor righteous indignation ready to fall from his tongue. There was just…heartbreak. “You know that I mourned as well.  Knowing what manner of beast snatched that boy from the dark… I regret not searching endlessly for him. However, I looked into his eyes and I accepted the fate he had chosen. What Loki did on Midgard, the terror his actions propagated…? I accepted them.”   
  
“And do you accept blame?” she asked already knowing the answer, to be king Odin wore the weight of worlds and yet still he never spoke the words. Never leaned on her for such help because that would have been a show of weakness. Her Alpha was not one to lament on the past or a shed a tear for what was or could have been. Not even to her.   
  
Not even now.   
  
“I will accept your judgment of this James Barnes. If you think it will do Loki well then so be it.” 

* * *

  
Soft chuckles rolled along with the warm afternoon breeze as the two made their way along the paths.  
  
“Thor was terrified of what mother would do to him when we returned. He was right to be of course, she took one look at me coated in a thick layer of muck screaming my head off and she nearly started a war.”   
  
“Sound’s like Ms. Rogers, I remember her a little. Just bits and pieces, I know she wasn’t a push over.” Bucky commented.   
  
They had taken to these little chats in the afternoons. It had begun as a way to pass the time- a respite from the horror brought about from remembering things too painful to give words to. Recalling happier times and sharing some joy with another. It was better to remember these things, the good things that brought back the light.   
  
Yet, there cannot be light with out the dark and sometimes it was good to talk about those times as well.   
  
“I saw it today. The arm.” Barnes said as they paused in front of a small pond.   
  
Loki knelt at the waters edge and beckoned the strange and colorful fish to the surface with the taping of his fingers. “When they took it from you?” he asked, in truth he had been curious of that. They had spoken of a group known to earth as Hydra, a collective of evil men bent on controlling and destroying everything. Loki was just glade these “hydra” meant no difference to beings as vast as Thanos or else he may have made Barnes acquaintance much earlier. With the soldier’s reputation, he wondered if the mad titan’s plans would have gone far smoother.   
  
“They didn’t take it…not really. It was just too damaged to be saved. I saw them when they gave me the other one.”  
  
He could hear the change in the alphas breathing and the spike in the already alluring scent. As much as the omega loathed admitting it, he had come to finds Barnes scent like a comforting balm. Much the way he had once viewed his brother only…in a far more interesting sort of way. That being said, Loki had come to notice the subtle changes in the mortal’s mood that went along with his scent. This change was not for the better or in that rush of comforting warmth as when Loki himself felt distressed. This was burning sort of note that wrinkled his nose and made the omega look up at the mortal beside him.   
  
Barnes eyes glassed over as he gazed unseeing into the water.   
  
“James?”   
  
“I watched them, I watched me, they just cut off what was left and I was still awake. I didn’t know I was still awake; the bastards just threw my damn arm on the floor. It looked so pale…like it wasn’t even mine. Then the wires and the metal …they had to burn parts to stop the bleeding. The smell was…”   
  
“James. Don’t.” Loki stood and touched the mans face, “Don’t. You are not there; you are here with me on Asgard. Those who armed you can not touch you here.”  
  
Loki didn’t know why he felt such a need to caress the mortals face and thread his fingers through Barnes chestnut hair, but he did it anyway. He stayed there speaking softly until those grey blue eyes cleared and gazed at him with an admiration Loki had never really received from anyone. He dropped his hands immediately and stepped away. Loki didn’t feel he deserved such a look.  
  
“Thanks…”   
  
“yes well…I can’t have you behaving badly in the queens gardens now can I?” the omega said, looking everywhere but at the mortal next to him.

* * *

  
Thor had been away from Asgard for a time, visiting his friends the avengers and his mortal Jane Foster. The prince tried his best to share his time equally between his home on Asgard and his new home on Midgard. Thor knew that the day would come when he would have to take the throne and these trips would be few and far between.   
  
Just as with anytime the golden prince was off world, the court looked forward to his return. Therefore, when the praised son of Odin was back in the safety of the palace halls - there was a feast held in the royal dining hall.   
  
If there was one thing Asgard did well it was grand gestures. Soon the dining hall was filled with members of court and warriors, the royal family as well as extended family. Per Thor’s request both Loki and James were allowed to come and take their evening meal in the hall.  Not that either man felt comfortable seated among the crowd with its noise and revelry.   
  
Still, it was a change from the monotony of their guarded quarters. Falternatively, Loki it was somewhat of a return to normal - not necessarily a welcomed normal; but normal nonetheless. James on the other hand found the experience to be less that ideal. All of the movement and sound made his skin crawl and hands itch. In addition, he had never seen this much food in his life!   
  
The prisoners sat side by side and talked among them during the feast, Barnes enjoyed the little commentary Loki provided while pointing out different people around the table. If these salacious statements and secrets were, true or not didn’t seem to matter.  Barnes had hazy dreams about sitting at long tables in a mess hall with other men, laughing and joking over their too done meat and runny eggs.  This wasn’t quite the same but it was at least something he could hold on to.   
  
  
It was during the changing of courses when Thor stood up with a glass and called for a toast in the honor of his comrades back on Midgard. Everyone raised their glass accordingly and listened to the prince. What they knew of Midgard warriors they all seemed to believe them honorable. If they were friends of the prince then it was the least they could do to toast.  
  
“I wish to toast this evening, to have the hopes and well wishes of Asgard sent to my shield brothers, Tony Stark the man of Iron and Captain Steven Rogers. They are excellent warriors and friends, they have shown valor and courage that sets them apart and I announce with a joyous heart that they are expecting a child!  ”   
  
Cheers rise from around the long table, the air filling with well wishes that Thor promises to pass along. In the joyous noise there is one face that has gone solemn and unnoticed, as least unnoticed by the one seated next to it.   
  
Steve was pregnant.   
  
James sat there staring into his soup, his stomach suddenly feeling full of lead. Everyone was so happy, he knew Steve so he should be happy…he wasn’t happy.  The mortal quietly excused himself and fled the dining hall not even aware of the steps following his exodus.   
  
“James, James wait!” Loki called after him   
  
Barnes wasn’t listening; he didn’t want to be mollycoddled by some omega. “I’m fine…” he blustered and continued one down the long hall.   
  
“You are not fine and I am not a fool. You think you are the only one to ever be slighted?”  
  
The mortal turned with fire in his eyes, “Look pal, I ain’t talking about this right now got me?”   
  
Loki crossed his arms and arched a skeptical brow, “oh? And do you plan to throw a tantrum like a milk breathed pup?”  
  
Suddenly the mortals face went grim and maybe in that moment Loki had not been afraid but now, now he had a chill running up his spine as the alpha approached. “James…”  
  
The Asset growls and groped the omegas tunic. His head was pounding and screaming as he started into surprised emerald irises. The omegas sent went sharp and that set a conflict in him.   
  
“James. This isn’t you.”  
  
It wasn’t the alphas fingers loosened and fell away. “I promised him…” Barnes muttered, unable to face the man he’d nearly harmed in a pique of rage. “I promised Steve, after the war we’d …”  
  
“Promises are not simple, in fact…I believe promises are the sweetest of lies that we tell ourselves.” Loki said reaching for the alphas hand. “I know about lies after all.”  
  
“Wasn’t a lie, least I don’t think it was. I don’t know what to think anymore.” James confessed.  “I remember him, when I sleep. All we had was each other. He was so sick all the time and he counted on me even if the punk didn’t want to admit it. I liked that about him, I liked how I could take care of him, I liked that he needed me. After…after he didn’t need me but he still wanted me.” unconsciously his fingers intertwined with lone pale ones.   
  
Loki stepped closer tipping the alphas chin to look in his eyes. “It must be nice to be needed and wanted. I sometimes wonder if things would have been different if I ever allowed myself such feelings. If anyone one would have truly wished to reciprocate them or if it would all is for naught once they discovered what I am.”  Subconsciously he began to lean closer to those full rosy lips before him.  
  
 **“Brother! Are you well?”**   
  
The pair jumped apart at the loud voice entering the hall behind them. Both men fighting the heat filling their faces.   
  
“Yes you oaf!” Loki shouted back perturbed. “Everything was simply glorious until your louder than a rutting bilgensipe presence entered. What is it that you want?”   
  
Thor looked between them his lips quirking, “Oh nothing, mother sent me to find you. You did leave abruptly after all, she thought you ill.”  
  
The omega snorted and crossed his arms, “Now you may report back to her that my health is secure. I was merely showing the sergeant his way back from the dining hall. You know, one of us still remembers his lessons in polite manners.” 


	16. Chapter 13:  Some things never change

James ‘Bucky’ Barnes was always a flirt; he could turn on the charm with a little crooked smile or a sly wink. He could get anyone to look his way. Steve often teased the brunette for ‘using his powers for evil’ when it came to flirting with a pretty waitress to slip them some free food on the sly at closing, or getting the tailor to resize hand-me-downs to fit Steve. Bucky was so good at it, there were times he was not even aware he was doing it until someone pointed it out.   
  
Some things never change.  
  
“He’s flirting with you.” Sif said as she sat down near Loki one day outside the archery grounds.   
  
Frigga had suggested to Thor that he might take Loki and the Sergeant out to the training grounds, as neither man had been out to do anything more physical than their short walks in the gardens. So today, Loki was left under the care of Sif and Hogan while Thor and Fandral took out James to see the stables. The boisterous Alpha proclaiming that he would teach the mortal to ride like a true Asgardian.   
  
“I do not know what you are referring to.” Loki spoke mildly, he had declined to participate in the sport that reminded him so of the Midgardian he had so wronged during the failed invasion. Instead, the omega leaned on the low gate and watched other thread their bows and loose arrows at the large painted targets. He could not help but think that the Hawk could easily best all the archers in Asgaurd.   
  
“The mortal, Barnes. I am sure you have noticed his interest in you. Though it is beyond me why he would have such interest”   
  
The omega bristled at her comment. “Funny I seemed to recall a certain little alpha that followed me about when we were children.”  
  
“That was before that little alpha realized what a pain in the backside you could be.” She said though her words lacked heat. She looked at him for a long moment before turning her eyes back to the archery field. “You have changed; you are almost as you were before all of this. Well perhaps not, you are not as impulsive as you were.”  
  
“Because I was young and foolish, I had not come to realize what the world truly is.”   
  
She signed and turned to him again, “Must you be so morose?   
  
Loki’s eyes lingered along the trail that led to the stables. “Must you be so blind? Even if I have changed, what I have done has not. What I am has not…Thor, the great idiot he is still looks at me with those childish eyes and calls me brother. At the very least, you and the others still have good sense to be weary of me. As for Barnes, He is not meant for this world. If he see’s me as anything in passing it is because he knows no better.”  
  
“Or because you believe you know better?” Sir challenged, watching as the sergeant rode down the trail after Thor and Fandral, the mortal’s handicap seeming not to impede his handling of the reins in the least.  “Fandral loved you, he mourned you. I watched him putt away that care he had for you because he realized he never really knew you. You hid so much from us Loki. Everyone hid too much.” Sif nodded to Barnes as the man wove his horse between the two blondes easily.  “This man wants to know you; I think you should allow him.”   
  
“And what if what he learns of me proves too much. Then what?”  
  
The alpha leaned back against the gate and looked up at the sky. “Then you will have tried, that is better is it not? I never once thought you to be a coward Loki. A liar, a trickster, a thief, and occasion a shameless tease - but never a coward.”

* * *

  
Loki is staring at him. Barnes can practically feel the omegas eyes burning a hole in the side of his face.   
  
“Something you wanna share?” he asks offering a little smile. Not that he does not mind the ravenette attention it’s just that Loki has been giving him more of a glare than a look of blissful adoration.   
  
“I’m a monster, has no one told you?”   
  
The he says it is so blasé, as if it’s common knowledge. Then again maybe it is, James has no way of know what Loki means by that exactly. They have talked about many things in the passing weeks but never once did Loki turn into some fanged or hairy beast. “Is this…a metaphor or…”   
  
“The omega stood up and began to pace. “No you idiot! I am a literal creature of nightmare, a foul thing that parents tell their children of a night. I hate to even speak its name. I am of Jotenhime, a stolen runt and a throwaway prince. You look at me like I’m more than that I truly can’t stand it.”  
  
Barnes shits where he sits, he doesn’t want to approach because Loki seems more like a wild cat right now and the mortal is smart enough not to get his eyes scratched out. “So, I’m a cripple and a nut. I had entire life spend murdering people so maybe I am a monster too. The thing about monsters though- is that tend to sound worse then they are.”   
  
“I assure you that is not the case. If you knew what I was, if you saw it… you would not speak to me as easily as you do sergeant.”   
  
“Then show me.”  
  
Loki blinked and stared at the mortal. “What?”  
  
“My crazy needs company so show me.” The alpha shrugged his shoulders and waited.   
  
The omega narrowed his eyes and nearly hissed at the idea of showing who he was beneath this Aesir guise. “I loath that skin and I will not dawn it like some parlor trick to amuse you.”   
  
“Do I look amused?” Barnes chuckled and shook his head, “Show it or don’t, I don’t care Loki. This is the you that I know, the you who made mistakes and regrets them. Who hurt a lot of people when he didn’t want to. I get what that’s like to look in a mirror and hate what’s looking back at you. But when I’m with you, I’m not that guy and you’re not a monster.”   
  


 


	17. Chapter 14: Unexpected consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware that the rating has gone to E.

Loki can still remember the first time he woke up with that fevered tingle crawling through his skin and the sour taste in the back of his throat. Even so young he had been dreading the day he would join the other omega. It had taken much longer for him and in truth the idea that it may never happen was one that he looked to fondly. Yet, the day did come. The way it hurt all over and the shame from what had followed. He swore he would never do it again, never suffer such a disgusting fate and fall victim to what society expected of him. Never spend another set of days writing hopelessly in his own filth and tears until the painful need to grind against his bed furs abated.   
  
Never again.  
  
Therefore, the young omega poured over every ancient tome he could find and experimented with potentially dangerous spells using his own body as a test subject. Days and weeks spend with out sleep and hardly any food as he tirelessly quested for an answer. Swearing that there had to be an answer because if there wasn’t this disaster ticking away in his body would surely spell his end.   
  
Trail and error, he would tell himself when the pain would come, the shaking and vomiting caused by ill mixed droughts filled with dangerous herbs and tonics. Finally he found the right combination and locked the cursed heat away. His scent was sharp and sour for months after but the second prince refused to be seen by Asgard’s healers.   
  
 When Loki does not want to do something, he generally does not do it. 

* * *

  
Only now that was no longer true, he was still a prisoner (though well treated he maybe) Loki is still required to take today’s treatment as the images begin to surface in his mind. The ravenette has fought on several occasions to lock away these less than savory images, each day his strength regains it is a bit easier to evade the seeking tendrils of Eir’s siedr.   
  
Today however, the memory came in disjointed flashes. As if reflected in a broken mirror- the way his captors held him down and had their primitive siedmen chant over his body. They wanted to see the omega beg for what they had for him, wanted his mind clouded and skin slick. They wanted to see the real Jotun bitch beneath the struggling glamour.   
  
Loki fought, he fought and stretched himself thin to keep what dignity he had, and he made them take it. Made them beat him and force him to their will because he would never allow himself to lie on his belly and over himself up. Never.   
  
Even now, the raven mage managed to muddle the memories together with flashes of his teenage self and his fall. Anything at all but the truth because the truth was filthy and dark.   
  
The truth was bruised knees and sweat dripping from the tip of his nose onto the ruined soil. The reality of the blood they tore from him day in and day out.   
  
“Who is your Lord…?”   
  
“I…am a god…I bend for no one…” He would spit the words and feel another heavy blow that sent him rolling.  “I am a god…”  
  
“Who is your Lord?”  
  
“Rot in helhime!” He screamed as his bones where broken repeatedly and allowed to slowly knit back together. The promised to tear him apart until there was nothing left.   
  
They promised to go to Asgard, to find his mother…and do the same to her.  
  
“Who is your Lord?”  
  
“Thanos.” 

* * *

  
Loki wakes up sweating ringing with sweat. Eir and the other healers tell him to move slowly and press bowls of cool water to his lips.   
  
He does not like the way Eir looks at him. He knows he cannot keep this up and so does she.   
  
Then James is there. Funny little mortal, he seems to always appear at times like this.   
  
“James, will you take Loki back to him rooms? Sygn is not well today and the Queen has meetings with a representative from Alfilhime. “Eir says.  
  
The mortal agrees and gently takes the omegas upper arm in hand. “Loki shrugs off the hand and glares as best he can. “I am no invalid Barnes.”  
  
“Says the guy shaking like a leaf, but yeah sure thing pal.” He holds up the hand in surrender and instead moves a few steps ahead before looking back. There’s no mistake the smug look on the alphas face when Loki stumbles slightly and has to steady himself on a nearby table.   
  
“Fine..” The prince grits and accepts the offers arm.   
  
All the way back they are pressed close together and walk in silence, it is however a comfortable silence. Loki feels drained and his head wrapped in wool.  There something about being this close to the alpha that makes him lean his head closer and indulge in the mortals scent. When they arrive, Barnes is a perfect gentleman as he helped him into bed and retrieves a glass of water. It is only after that the air seems to grow thicker and something slowly begins to change.   
  
James noticed right away, the way the omegas scent was cloying and warm, the way the ravenette eyes seemed dark and glistening. Everything in his hydra enhances brain knew. The problem was that James Barnes did not realize until he was so close and breathing it in. The space between them felt like to much and he couldn’t stop his searching hand as it reached out and tucked one of those long inky strands behind the omegas ear.   
  
They stares at each other and Loki felt his face flushing, when Barnes reached out and made the soft gesture he couldn’t help but turn his head and case the mortals wrist. Placing a chaste kiss on the mans pulse point and breathing in his skin.   
  
“Loki…”   
  
His name sounded more like a question and the answer was simple, he grabbed the mortal’s shirt and drug him down to claim another kiss. The alpha was shocked into submission and Loki smirked against the soldier’s mouth and nipped at his lower lip.   
  
“I want you James…I hate how badly I want you.”   
  
Barnes struggles to hold him self steady on one hand as he crowns the omega climbing over those long elegant limbs. Everything in his head is saying this is too soon; he should do something…say something. Loki was worth more than just a roll in the hay.   
  
Instead, the alpha growls and pressed his hips flush with the whimpering omega. Loki’s fingers tugged and pulled at his clothes and soon those cool hands were scratching down his back.   
  
Unfortunately, or fortunately - it is a matter of opinion. The two were to wrapped up in each other to hear Loki’s chamber door open. Not until Barnes was hauled away by hair by a very angry looking god of thunder.   
  
Thor growled at his brother left whining on the bed and flung the other alpha out into the hall. He could smell the pair of them half way down the hall.  “ Be still brother! You are a prince of Asgard control yourself!”  He snapped walking out of the room and slamming the door.  
  
James was scrambling to his feet, back slightly aching from the mix of nail marks and the impact with the stonewall. “What the hell…”  
  
“What indeed sergeant! I trust you with my brother only to find you pawing at him like some rutting beast!” the thunderer growled clamping a hand around the mortals neck. “I can see you are not in your right mind Sergeant, but mark my words! We will speak regarding  what has happened here. Guards! Take him away!” 

* * *

  
Loki feels bereft when the soldier is taken away. He hates how badly he craves the taste of the mortals lips and the feel of the mans skin against his own. He despises how badly he has wanted this for days. Loathes how his own hands pull and free his clothes, taking himself in hand to the thought of those startling bright eyes. There was a time Loki had sworn to never need anyone because there would never be anyone who would see him the way he wanted to be seen.   
  
James looked at him, looked into his very heart and without words demanded that Loki not look away. This mortal had done the one thing that all his so-called family had failed to do. James Barnes did not turn away from his sins.   
  


* * *

  
In the Midgardian prisoner's room the scene was much the same. Barnes drenches himself with cold water and tries to clear his head.  It does nothing to quell the burning in his stomach and throbbing between his legs. He hates how close he claim to doing the unthinkable to the heat-addled prince.   
  
He wants to protect Loki. James never thought he would ever get the chance to protect anyone ever again. Is he even still capable of it?   
  
“Fuck…” he swears and finally gives into temptation. Licking his lips as his fist closes around the swollen flesh. He can still taste Loki’s mouth lingering there on his tongue.  


	18. Chapter 15: Big brother is not amused

To say that Thor was unamused would be putting it lightly. At this point everyone was aware of the irate alpha and tried their best to stay out of his way.   
  
“I bring this mortal here to help him! Yet he disrespects my honor in such a way!” Thor blustered pacing back and forth in the warriors hall. A few servants skittering out of his way as they set down another pitcher of ale for the prince and his comrades.   
  
“To be fair Thor, they have been spending much time together. It is possible that..” Fandral started but was immediately cut off by a glare from the thunderer.   
  
“My brother is in a fragile state! His mind was toyed with, his body broken and now this? It has been ages since he has had a proper heat, that would turn any omega into helpless maid. Sergeant  Barnes should have conducted himself with honor!”   
  
Sif rolled her eyes, “Loki and helpless are not two words that have ever paired well. How do you know it is not the trickster working his whiles to bed the soldier?”  
  
Thor would have argued but he knew Loki wouldn’t be above such a thing. Still, “He is my brother and an unbound omega. It is my duty to insure that he is treated with respect when it comes to courting.”  
  
There was nothing left to be said now and they all knew it. Even so, leave it to Dashing to question the annoyed prince. “So what do you intend to do?”  
  
Odinson gave a snort and crossed his arms, “The sergeant will answer for his disrespect on the training grounds. If he can best me then he is worthy of my brother.”   
  
This was not going to end well.

* * *

  
Bucky looked down at the “royal summons”, smooth parchment sealed with wax and written in heavy handed script. It had taken him a while to  recover from the day this far, as soon as he managed to cool his head from the searing kiss of the prince. Now he’d come out to find this little handwritten bomb waiting for him. The paper said that he was being challenged and to appear by Noble order at the training yard of  Asgard’s royal guard.   
  
“Great…I’ve never been hammered to death. That’s one to write home about.”  he said tersely to himself, tossing the summons to a nearby desk.   
  
Walking through the palace, Barnes noticed the looks he was getting. People milling about whispering and sending curious (some times disgusted) gazes in his direction.   
  
“man, and I thought the old neighborhood had a lot of busy bodies.” He muttered, turning down yet another long hall until he stood before the heavy double doors to the training grounds.   
  
James knew he was at a disadvantage, the smart thing to do would be to just apologize to the other alpha for touching Thor’s kid brother and move on. However, something itched in the back of Barnes mind, a far away reflection of a much younger version of himself saying ‘hell no! I’ll  show this punk!”    
  
That may not be who he was anymore, but maybe it could be apart of who he was now.  “Lets do this.”

* * *

  
Thor was waiting for him, standing there in the center of the training field dressed down and with out his trademark hammer. Therefore, it seemed this would be more of a hand-to-hand situation. Even so…unless the big guy planned on tying one arm behind his back this still was not common ground.   
  
That did not matter; Barnes felt a tingle down his spine as he stepped on to the training ground. It started as a low buzz then grew into an electric throb snaking along his spinal column and turning his vision into shades of gray. This was the Asset clawing to the surface, the monster had not had its fill of blood in far too long and James was almost inclined to give over to the feeling.  Almost.  
  
“I’ll go ahead and assume this is about your brother.”   
  
“It is about your disrespect of him yes Sergeant. I knew that you were not a good man when I brought you here but I had hoped that under all of the horrible injustices you have suffered there might be some shadow of the man who was the Captain’s friend.”   
  
James looked around the grounds, seeing the Asgardian’s friends standing nearby. Of the four, none of them looked too thrilled with this little exchange. Then again, most of them had not been too thrilled to meet him at first either and from what he gathered- not all of them thought to highly of Loki, at least not in recent years.    
  
“Sorry to disappoint. Although, I didn’t disrespect your brother.” The soldier’s lips curl just slightly, “I’m 100 percent sure he enjoyed it.”   
  
That was the wrong thing to say.   
  
Thor did not give much warning as he stalked up growling and punched Barnes square in the chest. The hit hard enough to send the man careening backwards into the wall. Even with Hydras serum he felt it and was sure he had, a few cracked- if not broken ribs. His hearing went a little fuzzy for a few moments as he heard one of Thor’s friends - Sif her name was, he was shouting that ‘that was enough’ but the alpha did not seem to think so.  
  
If James were being honest with himself, he would have done the same if he had been in Thor’s place. An alpha sibling should always insure the safety of the omegas in their pack. It was just the right thing to do. However, at Loki’s age this was a bit much.   
  
Thor stomped over and lifted Barnes by the neck, the struggling solider gave a swift kick with both feet to the blonde’s midsection. It was enough for the thunderer to loose his grip and for Barnes to slip out of range.   
   
“Look buddy! Your brother is grown! Hell he’s older than me and Steve put together!” Barnes shouted as he dodged the growling blonde’s fists.   
  
Thor shouted enraged “That is of no consequence! It is irreprehensible to use an omegas heat against them!”   
  
“I wasn’t doing that ya meathead! Open your ears! The last thing I would ever do is hurt him!” Barnes was not quite quick enough and found himself flung across the arena and rolling to a stop. As he looked up the swirling dirt he saw Thor barreling toward him.

* * *

  
 **Meanwhile.**   
  
Loki was miserable; he now remembered why he locked his wretched heat away in the first place. It now felt worse than he ever remembered, the embarrassment and frustration paired with a stabbing pain in his belly.  
  
“It will be alright darling.” His mother assures. Was not that the most embarrassing part of all of this to have Frigga here as his bed side when not an hour before he had nearly pinned the sergeant in a sexual fit.  
  
It wasn’t hard to tell that she was refraining from scolding him, although it was plain enough in her voice when she’d said he was just ‘unaccustomed’  to heats. Frigga had never been happy with the idea that her son had suppressed himself.  She had long thought it was unsafe and damaging to him yet Loki was even less perceptive to suggestion than his brash alpha brother. Thus, she kept her opinions to herself. Loki was old enough to wield his magic by that time and so he was old enough to deal with any consequence of  ill advised spells.   
  
“Yes of course…I’ll simply die of collective shame, embarrassment, and irritation. Then I shall feel marvelous.” he groaned curling into a ball.   
  
“Is it truly so terrible?” her calming voice penetrating the layers of blanket armor.   
  
“It is….Thor…UGH that… that great buffoon!”   
  
She chuckled and rubbed her sons back. “He used to carry you about like a little bag of gold when you were a babe. Telling everyone how happy, he was to be a big brother. Thor only means to care for you in his own way, as… boisterous as that maybe.”  
  
Loki uncovered his head and glared around the room. He wanted to object but his mind was less than cooperative with his usually string of well-crafted insults. His head just pounded and swam, his skin already flushed and hair damp. “Mother…”   
  
“I know dear heart, I know.”   
  
Frigga got up to pour a bowl of fresh water when she notices Muninn perched on the window seal tapping at the glass. She looked back at Loki who had now kicked away his blankets and retreated to his bathing room.   
  
She swiftly unlatched the window and let in the raven, allowing the avian to perch on her shoulder. “What is wrong Muninn?”  She questioned as the creature began to whisper what it had seen. The queen pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. “Ignorant Children…Alphas. All the same all the same.”  
  
“Mother…where is James?”   
  
She looked back to see her younger son clutching his robe closed with wide eyes. Had he over heard?   
  
“Oh he and Thor are just having a little chat, nothing to worry about.”  
  
“Chat!” Loki shrilled, “Thor does not chat!”  Loki made for the door still in his robe, visions of a bloodied mortal dancing in his head.   
  
Frigga was quicker, grabbing the impaired omega around he waist and gently hauling him back to bed. “No dear, do not worry. Eir is coming with a drought for your pain that shall make you sleep and I will go and see to Thor and your sergeant Barnes.  
  
“he’s not my…” Loki grumbled cheeks tinting.  
  
“Yes of course do forgive me sweet one. Now lay down and you will feel better when you wake.”  
  
Thank the gods for Eir, after the healer had arrived( tuting and tisking over Loki for sealing his heats for so long) she gave him something that lulled the omega into a dreamless deep sleep. “Shall I stay with him my lady?”  
  
Frigga passed her fingers once more through her sons raven waves; Muninn squawking from his perch. “Yes, thank you Eir. Though… Thor and the Sergeant may need your services when I am through with them.

* * *

  
“THAT IS ENOUGH!” a voice rose above the clatter.  Frigga stood at the entrance of the training grounds with her hands on her hips and Muninn, one of Odin’s crows, perched on her shoulder. They may serve as his father’s eyes but they are certainly his mother’s ears.   
  
Thor glared at the snitching bird but had the good sense to drop his head away from his mother’s angry gaze.   
  
“Thor Odinson! You do your father and me a disservice by your actions! You act as such a tyrant to exert your strength over someone at a clear disadvantage, no matter what the circumstances this is not the actions of a prince and certainly not the actions of a king! “   
  
Bucky struggles to his feet during the queen’s tirade and sucker punched the browbeaten Thor. This earning himself an equally acidic glare from the old omega. “I’m sorry Ma’am but he hit me first.”   
  
Frigga groans and points at them both with fire in her eyes, “Stop this and go clean yourselves up this instance!” 

* * *

  
Thor and Bucky sit alone in the healing room, Barnes holding a wrapped piece of ice to his cheek and Thor holding one likewise to a split lip.  
  
Eir had given both of them a talking to after the queen had gone back to tend to Loki and it appeared both alphas had enough of a chidings to last a lifetime.   
  
“I wasn’t forcin myself on your brother, if you would’a listened to me ya’d know that.” Barnes still wore a glare though it lacked heat  now.   
  
Thor just stared at the floor, “Loki has been harmed and deceived by many, too many of them alphas. I do not wish him anymore suffering, I want my brother to only be well as he once was and his mind whole. Perhaps then we can make amends.”   
  
Thinking it over, Barnes set down the bag of ice and looked at the other alpha, “from my experience, sometimes you just cannot go back to how things used to be. When I first escaped Hydra, all I wanted was to find out whom I was and go back to that. Then I realized what I used to know was gone, then I came here and thanks to you and the medicine you have here - I might not be who I was but I will be able to remember it. I will not be a danger to everyone around me. I think I realize that has to be enough, if I can take what I have and try to make up for what the winter solider has done.  I do not know why, but I feel like your brother has something to do with that. “  
  
“You have both suffered by the hands of tyrants. You can understand him in a way that none of us can. “Thor said, “then I wish only for a better future for everyone.” He smiled over at the soldier and offered his hand.   
  
Barnes took it in a shake, a smile of his own blooming across his face. “To the future.”  
  
  



	19. Chapter 16: Maybe there’s more.

It had been a few days since Loki’s heat had ended and the omega was deemed free to have company. The room had been aired and while the Loki was still feeling worn from the experience, (which was much harsher than it need be due to the time in which he had been suppressed) was happy to see Barnes nonetheless.   
  
“I heard you would be coming back in to see Eir, thought maybe I could walk ya down?”  Barnes looked away and Loki had to admit it was charming to see the alpha blushing like a pup.   
  
“Do you feel I require an escort Sergeant?”  
  
The mortal frowned and placed his hand on his hip, “Sergeant? We back to that?”   
  
Loki chuckled and slipped out of his room. “James, forgive me sometimes I do enjoy teasing a bit with titles. I find it funny those who works so hard for them often tell others not to use them.”   
  
They walked silently for a while, steps falling in sync as they made their way down the long and ornate halls. Finally, Barnes broached the subject they had both been dancing around. He had been thinking about it for days, what to say… what to do.  He had Thor’s blessing to approach Loki but that would only work if the omega were receptive.   
  
 “So…about what happened…” the alpha started to say, this conversation had gone much smoother in his head.   
  
“Do you wish to forget it?” Loki queried, though a part of him ached to think of it, he wanted to give the alpha an easy way out of this. Surely, there was no way James would want to continue as they have been. There failed attempt at foreplay during Loki’s surprise heat should be forgotten.   
  
The mortal looked stunned. “What…No. no …I Just…” James rubbed the back of his head trying to find the right words. “Ya know this is kinda ass backwards for me. The last time I even approached an omega was …1939 and it wasn’t this hard cause I wasn’t even an Alpha then…and…well you get that this is new for me- is what I’m saying here.”  
  
Loki hummed, amused by the mortals mild distress. “The substance that was given to you made you an Alpha; I do wonder however, why it did not do the same for the Captain?”  Deflecting their discussion, he only hoped the other took the bait. The last thing he wanted was to ruin this easy relationship with talk of his heat. Moreover the way Loki nearly tore off the sergeants tunic.   
  
“Steve was an omega, still is considering that he’s got a bun in the oven. What Hydra shot me up with was some modified and bastardized serum, who knows. The point is I never had to worry about ruts and even smelling a heat dizzy omega didn’t register as much to me. I shouldn’t have just jumped on ya like that.”    
  
Deflection thwarted.   
  
It was at least cute watching the brunette make his apologies for less than gentlemanly behavior. “I did not fight your advances James. Unlike your pitiable earth omega, I still had my faculties well in hand. If I had been non receptive to you …” Loki leaned in with a wolfish grin “I would have killed you.”   
  
Barnes startled and blinked, falling a few paces behind and muttered, “You are so scary and I like it…What is wrong with me!” 

* * *

  
As the sergeant catches up, and they chat about this and that, their hands brush occasionally as they walk - Loki knows what this is, he knows he should not foster the feelings this mortal has, yet… he has always been a selfish one hasn’t he?   
  
Loki wants this because he has never had it before, not pure like this. This man has nothing to gain from him, because Loki has nothing to give. There is no mad scramble for a title or climb for a piece of the royal family. There is no promise of heirs with noble lineage. Even when he thinks of those days, he feels grief knowing why Odin never approved of any of his suitors in the end. Because what sort of half-breed abomination would he whelp?    
  
No, he knows this will never work but he wants to dream of it. Wants to live in that lie for just a little while. In truth, he wants to cling to this feeling because he knows how fragile it really is.  
  
 ‘When he knows, when he sees what I really am… it will be over.’  Even as the self-damming phrase runs through his mind, Loki wants to give James more credit than that, wants to believe that perhaps the mortal might find something exotic and alluring about a frost giant. What good are those feelings and wishes for entanglement when even a touch in his true form could permanently scar? He was a disease, a monster; even a caress would cause unimaginable pain to this little mortal.  
  
Loki smiles sadly and banishes the thoughts aside as they arrive at the healing room.  “It would appear you have safely delivered me.”  
  
“Do I get a reward for a job well done?” Such a cheeky little mortal. Barnes winks and for a moment, Loki wonders if this is how he looked all those years ago. If this was the man who captivated the Captain.   
  
“Oh I do not believe you have earned such honors yet,” He inclines his chin and revels in the way the alphas focus drifts down the column of his throat. There is a kind of power in this that Loki has enjoyed for some degree; Barnes was not the first to desire him. Yet there was more in the soldier’s eyes that simple lust and that was the drug Loki craved. “Perhaps later.”   
  
He watched Barnes go with a spring in his step. 

* * *

  
“You should not play with your food like that.” Eir comments dryly behind him. “Come in Loki, we have much to discuss”  
  
Eir dismissed her students as the ravenette sat before her. The old healer’s eyes zeroing in on him, she was not pleased and the feeling was radiating off her.   
  
“Why do you insist on blocking me?”  
  
Loki fiend ignorance, waving a hand in a dismissive fashion, “I don’t know what you’re referring to Lady Eir.”  
  
“Listen well son of Frigga, I will not have a patient jeopardizes his own health for the sake of pride. I know that you are using what little siedr you still posses to hide certain memories. I need not tell you how dangerous that is Loki. How am I to prove your innocence if you shade so much of what has happened?”   
  
His eyes flash with anger, “You think that Odin will suddenly forgive his tarnished war trophy because it had been damaged by the hands of others? To think, the queen once spoke of your intelligence.”   
  
Eir fisted her skirts staring at the insolent youth, “This is no game Loki, your mind could be broken if you continue to give safe harbor to such black thoughts. That is precisely were Thanos control may lay! You may have escaped the prisons of Asgaurd but you will never regain true freedom until the All father can be sure that you will not once again become a pawn!”  
  
“Oh and wouldn’t that just be soooooo embarrassing for him. His wayward little pet growing rabid. What would the court say?”   
  
She didn’t want to do this, she truly didn’t but what choice had he given her with his stubborn ways. “Will you face your past Loki? “  
  
“I have already faced it, which is enough for a millennia. If Odin and his wonderful council do not have enough evidence then let them banish me or kill me I care not which.”   
  
The defiance in his voice was clear, “You leave me no choice.” She said calmly, he would never see the thin needle in her hand. Loki would barely feel the drug soaked sharp pierce the tender skin of his neck.   
  
“What have you done to me?” Looking up at her so betrayed and broken, already feeling the warm cloying drug invading his veins and blurring his sight. “Please…” he slurred reaching out to her, she couldn’t do this… she couldn’t see. No one could see.  
  
“I am sorry young one; even if you despise me I made your mother a promise. I will do as I must to give you back to her.” She said, stroking his hair as the fast acting narcotic lulled the prince into a deep sleep.   
  



	20. Chapter 17: There is something worse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can only work so fast sorry if that’s not good enough, I just felt rushed this time so.. Yeah this is short and probably awful. I understand people enjoy this and I thank you for that, but pressuring an author for updates only causes stress. I already have enough of that in my life.

“My Lady are you sure?” One of the young assistants asked as they positioned the prince on the soul forge.   
  
None of this felt right and they all knew it, it hung in the air like smog and settled heavy around their shoulders. This could all go so wrong and then what?  
  
Healing of the mind was far more strenuous than healing of the body. The soul forge it self aided much in physical wounds- they could monitor every body system carefully and treat the patent accordingly swiftly and efficiently.  With the mind, they relayed on the siedr practitioner to traverse the planes of subconscious. Typically, this was never done due to the range of difficulty. Those who were considered ‘mad’ were quietly cared for by family and kept away from the community. Only in special cases were those with diseases of temperament brought to the healers; a member of the royal family for instance.   
  
The treatment was better accomplished with the patient’s aid; they had already discovered this through treating Loki and Barnes.   
  
Eir wished things could have been different, “We do as we must.” 

* * *

  
Loki felt hot and groggy; he looked down at cold black floor beneath his palms. He needed to get up, he needed to run. They made a mistake by allowing the visitors to bring him aboard their ship.   
  
Thanos said this would be a sign of good will for Loki to ‘play nice’ with his other allies - the Kree. Loki did not intend to do any of that, he watched carefully as they dragged him aboard - all the while formulating a plan. He would escape and have the fools chase him the cargo pay and then blow the air lock. In the confusion, he would make his way to the ships emergency pods and eject himself before they could scramble back or be picked up by one of the chittari patrols. With any luck, he could pilot the meager craft a safe distance. If they caught up to him, he would use every ounce of siedr within his body to turn the little life preserver into a bomb.    
  
It was a solid plan for what it was. Desperate it may be it was his last stand.   
  
Having managed to slip out of the holding room Loki crawled trough the ships ventilation system, unfortunately the guard noticed he was missing and now the alarms blared all over the ship. Something told him that he was not going to make it. He could use his siedr to try and map the ship and then teleport himself but that was hit or miss as weak as he was, and using that much energy would but his fail safe plan in jeopardy.   
  
He would have to make a run for it.   
  
Kicking open a vent the lithe god slid from the vents opening and landed on the hard metal deck. Having been so weak, his landing had not been as graceful as he would have liked. Struggling up from one knee Loki glanced behind and in front of himself. Red lights flashed in warning and he could hear the sound of heavy boots running through the ships maze of corridors. He had watched when he was brought in, as sly as the godling was he pressed his battered limbs against surfaces to smear blood along the way. His own macabre little trail of bread crumbs.   
  
Running, running until his chest ached and his limbs burned. Twice he had narrowly evaded capture and now he wanted them to come. The more of the crew he could lure to the bay doors the better.  Loki spied a massive crate and pulled with all his might, sending the container clattering to the floor and spilling its contents.   
  
Shouts.  They were coming.   
  
Loki positioned himself by the lever and waited with a grin splitting his face. “Just a bit closer you blue skinned rats!” perhaps that was what he hated most about the kree. They looked a bit like frost giants with their cobalt skin and strange eyes. The only difference was that these creatures did not radiate cold.  Still, looking at them was enough to send a chill up his spine. Too close… much to close.   
  
“You think your smart don’t you?” A deep voice rumbled through the corridor.   
  
Loki pulled the switch expecting the bay doors to fly open. When they did not he cursed and violently jerked the switch up and down.   
  
The dark voice began to laugh. “You think I can not control my own ship?”  The Kree Captain said as he stood at the opening to the cargo bay, his soldiers behind him grinning like jackals. “Take him.”  
  
Loki tried to fight; he kicked, pushed and hurled insults as they grabbed at him. One of the Kree warriors slammed his body up against the wall, the air fled his lungs and the omega crumpled to his knees. Loki gasped and cringed at the immense pain dancing along his spine.   
  
The soldiers snatched him by the ankles and hauled their captive back through the ship.    
  
They ended up in a central room that felt almost like a cathedral and Loki was strapped into something that looked like a torture device. ‘Perhaps they will kill me’ he thought looking up as the soldiers left leaving their captain alone.   
  
“Little godling that wears a false skin. Thanos has plans for you, though I wonder, what could an omega that cannot even show his own face really do? I find denial of heritage truly distasteful.”  
  
“You know nothing about me!” he growled, glaring up into the captain’s eyes. “What good are you? Another of the Titian's lap dogs?”  
  
“Who am I? They call me terrorist, radical, zealot. I am Ronan the accuser and you little beast; you will kneel before me long before you bow to Thanos.” with that Ronan extended his weapon.  
  
 The light from the long handed hammer like staff made Loki’s skin burn. He ground his teeth and screeched. He could feel what little siedr he still had slipping through his fingers.   
  
Ronan laughed and leaned forward, “Such beautiful eyes; like blood.” 

* * *

  
“My Lady! This is far too dangerous to proceed! “    
  
“I Know!” Eir shouted as she fought through he sudden static consuming Loki’s mind. It was impossible that the omega could hinder her while unconscious. Unfortunately, he could not help either. Whatever they had stumbled upon was powerful.  
  
The farther they delved the more precarious the prince’s vitals became. Eir had hope once they were trough the worst of things that the young man would even out. Loki had proved repeatedly he was stronger than most would give him credit. This however felt different, as the healer looked to the swirling energies projected by the soul forge it was as if each one was being set a blaze and left to burn out one by one.  Even a sturdy Jotun psychology had its limits. Especially when it was being torn apart from the inside out.   
  
“Come now boy, open your eyes…”  Eir tired to use her own siedr to reach out for the floundering man.  “Give him the wakeful tonic! Do not just stand there gawking!”   
  
Her younger protégés rushed around doing as their mistress bid.  However, this only seemed to make matters worse as the omega eyes flew open, his sclera blood red and irises a glowing violet.   
  
Eir pulled her hands away looking down into those eyes of such an other worldly hue. She knew with out a doubt she had lost control.

* * *

  
The Kree Captain stalked around him like a predator assessing its next meal.  All the while, Loki could feel the cold ebbing from his skin and his vision was consumed in red.   
  
“How…” he chocked out the words in disbelief. How had this man breeched every defense with a single touch of his weapon?   
  
Ronan regarded the jotun, “A gift from Thanos. I suppose he will do the same with you when he sends you to destroy Midgard. That lovely staff that the Other has used on you. I can tell he has by the sickness in your eyes. It doesn’t take for long though and that I find interesting.” The captain leans in and caressed the omegas tribal lines. “Why hide such a treasure under a façade of weakness?”   
  
Loki growled and bore his teeth. “I have no desire to wander the nine with the face of a mindless beast!”   
  
“Is that what the Aesir taught you? They think themselves gods but they are no better than any other of the pink little mortals that worship them. There is a reason Thanos plucked you from the void Jotnar. The titian while mad is smart enough to see potential.” Rona reached out and grabbed a handful of the omegas raven hair.  “Your life will depend on your usefulness; if you fail he will kill you.”  
  
“I am not afraid of death.”   
  
“You should not; its what he will do before he kills you is what you should fear. However…” The grip loosed on Loki’s hair as the Kree alphas fingers slid through his hair and around his jaw. “I can see more in you than a pawn to be used and discarded. You have rage and passion, if only you had a cause to pour such vigor into. I could give you refuge from Thanos.”   
  
“What makes you think I will need it?” The omega spat.   
  
“Because…you stink of desperation. A true leader has need of nothing but victory. You little one - were made to cower.”    
  
Loki’s bindings release and his body slumped to the carved floor; the alpha was on him tearing away the thin rags that covered this body. The heavy face of Ronan’s weapon pressed on his back- pinning him down.  He cursed and clawed at the ground in vein as the kree crouched behind him. Cold rough hands trailing over his spine and buttocks.   
  
“Your hips are a bit narrow, not sufficient enough to whelp anything or worth. Not that I would wish to sully my bloodlines with such a primitive creature.”  Ronan spoke and grabbed the omegas genitals roughly. “Perhaps when I claim you I will have this cut off and your womb carved out. “  
  
“STOP!” Loki screamed and fought, this was not the first time he had been touched so and yet this was worse. So much worse because now even he had no idea what manner of disgust the alpha was seeing. Knowing he was laid so bare in this alien form was crushing; destroying…he wanted nothing more than to die this very moment.    
  
“remember this little omega, because whatever pain you feel now. This is nothing to the pain you will feel.”   
  
The pressure on his spine was gone and when Loki managed to roll over, he saw Ronan leave and his guard return. A final order falling from the accusers lips as he departed. “Have your fill and return him to Nebula, give Thanos my thanks for such hospitality.”   
  
  
  
  
  


 


	21. Chapter 18: Something you never knew you wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: While I was writing this, Remedy by Adele came on and it seriously just struck me while I was digging into my outline. Therefore, I ended up putting that on repeat and getting into this chapter. Something about that song really fit with what I was going for here, so if you have not heard it - please do check it out!
> 
> To those of you who left kind words last chapter, thank you for being so understanding, it is nice to know there are some people who care about the person behind these fan works. Cause well…some people do not. Any way here is the chapter. I have also nailed down the outline and found an end for this story. It may be shorter than I originally planed because I feel like id rather save some subject matter for a separate work.

Bucky had been on his way back to the healing wing. The entire morning his mind occupied with thoughts of green eyes and a mischievous smile.   
  
He smiled to himself thinking of their conversations, the way the omegas always held himself with such poise. Most of all he thought of those brief moments at the beginning of Loki’s heat. Soft skin under his lips that smelled like wildflowers and rain with notes of something cool almost like mint leaves. So soft and yet exotic… James spent night’s awake thinking about that scent and about dragging his tongue over Loki’s long pale neck.   
  
Setting aside his more amorous intentions, the alpha had hoped to spend the afternoon caring for the omega. Loki’s treatments as of late had been especially draining and Barnes understood that better that anyone.   
  
Eir had successfully located some of his trigger words buried deep in his memory and was able to remove the dominance they had on his mind. Even now that he remember his time as both the winter solder and as Bucky Barnes, he was not out of the woods. The alpha’s memories were shattered and fragile - ‘effected by the cryogenic stasis’ Eir had guessed.  James had good days and bad, and Loki was there, he wanted to return that favor.   
  
If he could be that soft place to fall for the prince then maybe the both of them could patch up each other and be stronger for it.   
After all, even steel had to be tempered through flames to become strong. James hoped that those flames were in the past, he wanted that quiet life that his youthful self had dreamed. He wanted a regular nine to five that did not involve killing anyone or carrying a gun. Just being able to work with is hands or rather - hand. That was another thing he tried not to think of too much, maybe Loki deserved better than him. Someone who was not so damaged.  Someone who didn’t see ghosts around every corner or wake up in cold sweats hearing guns and bombs going off in his head. The raven-haired prince deserved some knight in shining armor, here that was actually a thing.   
  
To the Sergeant, it seemed like everyone in Asgard was a warrior or a soldier. It was like slipping into a storybook filled with dragons and quests. There was a darkside though to all of this magic and he knew it. Even Loki had mentioned going to war when he was just a boy, talking about the battlefield as if it was nothing more than another day.   
  
Bucky could not imagine omegas fighting, well other than Steve but that was an exception after the serum. The serum had changed everything, even the broken compound that he had been exposed to by hydra.   
  
Perhaps his altered biology pushed him to want to shelter the omega as he did. He wondered if this oppressive need was normal, to want nothing more than to sit quietly in the gardens, running his fingers through the other mans hair. There was a time that he would have laughed at some knothead aloha for letting some omega chain him down. Barnes was now eating those words.   
  
The truth was that ever since he had left Loki at the healing wing a couple of hours ago, he had spent the morning going over and over in his head about how to formally ask permission to begin courting. James vaguely remembers seeing alphas come to the apartment to ask for his sister.   
_‘Do they even do things like that in Asgard?’_ he wondered.  
  
The mortal didn’t know but he was willing to put himself out there. He hoped today to take that comfort a bit farther - if he should be so bold. Barnes remembered how omega seemed to take great comfort in scenting with family and lovers, perhaps the act would be welcomed. Not to mention, the idea of holding the ravenette in his arms and nuzzling the crook of that long supple neck.   
  
The soldier was half lost in these beautiful daydreams when he saw a young boy running from the healing wing and yelling for a messenger to find the Queen.  
  
Something in the youths voice made the alpha quickens his pace. Soon James was running down the corridor with his heart pounding far too vigorously for the short sprint. This is not fatigue that has shaken him so, but fear. Somewhere in his head, there were screams and sounds of bombs crashing in the distance. Intellectually he knows it’s not real, that the hell he remembers is far away. Yet what’s to say there is not a hell far worse waiting for him. A hell that will strip him to the bone and crush his beating heart.   
  
He can smell it in the air, the sick copper scent of blood and the sharp stench of urine. This is wrong very wrong. He pushed his way into the room were his and Loki’s treatments occur, and he sees the one thing that breaks him more than Hydra ever could.  
  
Loki thrashing violently as Eir and the others did their best to hold the seizing omega down. His skin was ashen as blood leaked from his nose and smeared across his face- painting those sharp pale cheeks in red.   
  
James stood there with his feet frozen to the floor, Loki had been fine when he left, and he had been fine. His subconscious supplemented the familiar sensation of ice creeping over his limbs. His blood grew sluggish and every heartbeat pounded like a bass drum between his ears.   
  
_‘Not again…not now, not him.’_

“Get out!” one of the healers yell at him. However, he cannot move, cannot look away because if he does this might all just get worse. James wants to believe that Loki will calm and sit up; that the omega will curse and push the helpful hands away. That is what Loki is like; he hates pity- that is why James has never pitted him. Never said ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘you poor thing’, Steve was like that too. The little blonde would rather chew glass than have someone tut over him and try to do for him.    
  
Maybe Barnes just had a thing for bossy.

* * *

 

Eir sees the alpha and sees how he looks at Loki. The zeroed in horror in the mortals blue grey eyes, so intense his own body quivered where he stood. His remaining hand twitches as if wanting to reach out and stop the horror.    
  
Had they truly grown so close? The healer knew that the pair had been spending more time together and had thought the match was a good one to promote the mending of their minds by interacting. Even so, she could see that the bond between them was more than familiarity. That the mishap of Loki’s impromptu heat was not the effects of a pheromone addled Alpha and Omega.   
  
This was deeper.   
  
Looking down at her struggling patient, Eir also knows that the Queen will not make it here on time to lend her power to salvaging her sons mind. Perhaps…a stronger bond would work.   
  
“Sergeant! Come here now!” Eir shouts and the mortal’s eyes snap up to hers. “Quickly boy!” She motions the soldier to make haste into the healing room.   
  
The old healer reaches out for him as soon as she can and places his flesh hand over Loki’s chest and hers over his. “Listen to me James, Loki needs you now. None of us can reach him but I believe that you can, as much as I trust in the Norns and the nine I believe in you right now! You must call to him; pull him away from his madness before it kills him”  
  
 It was a stretch and she knew it, but something told her it was right.  She could see in in Barnes eyes the moment he stepped foot in the room.   
  
“I… I can’t I don’t have any of that magic like you guys do!” He could feel Loki’s heart racing under his palm. What was Eir thinking? He was just a man from earth, just a smart mouthed kid from Brooklyn. 

“If you do not he will die!”   
  
That clenched it; James closed his eyes and tried thinking his way to Loki or projecting his feelings. All those weird things he’d ever heard about or read about in passing. The problem was he didn’t believe in those things, even the way those here in Asgard used their advanced science and what Loki called ‘siedr’. It was all fancy words and things he didn’t understand. As a kid he always thought that the ’bonded sense’ was all a crock. It wasn’t as if it was something he’d have to worry about back then but now…now just looking down and watching the omegas complexion turn from flawless cream to a waxy grey, he knew. Like knowing the way home, like cleaning and dismantling a gun with his eyes closed.   
  
 The alpha grinds his teeth and looks down, Loki is so pale and his scent is all wrong. He can’t do this again; he can’t fall any farther and lose someone else.   
  
“Damn it….Damn it!”  Barnes snatches his hand away and snarls. Staring down at his hand clenching and unclenching about the omegas trembling form, it seems so futile and worthless in comparison to these superior beings around him. James wants to believe in what Eir has said, wants to believe in those old wives tales because if he can’t… If he can’t then he really will be alone.   
  
The alpha closes his eyes and breaths in and out, rooting his feet to the floor, knowing he can’t just stand here and beg or use some thin simpering will to bring Loki back, James Barnes has never begged in his life. He’s never cried out like a child, or whimpered for anything to end. No matter how much it hurt. Even when those damn Nazi’s tied him to a table and shot him full of drugs - he spit in their faces and kept shouting out his tag numbers and rank. Even when Hydra put him in that chair, yeah - he screamed. He agonized and inside his own mind prayed for death with those brief bleak moments of lucid consciousness.   
  
Nevertheless, he never begged  
  
Loki wouldn’t have liked begging anyway, no way… James knew that if anyone knew what it was like to live and breath with vinegar in your veins and salt in your eyes - it was Loki.   
  
Eir is quick to move the others away, she knows the alpha would be little threat to her but she knows he will never do what needs to be done while crowded. She can feel she shift in the room when the mortal steadies himself. Its like looking at a warrior affixing his blade or axe. This is a man who has faced death and terror with his back straight and eyes cold. There is resolve in the lines of the Sergeants shoulders as he reached down and slips a hand under the young prince’s neck.   
  
A broken sob so filled with frustration and pain rips from the man as he leans over the bed and cradles the trembling prince’s neck, pressing their foreheads together. “Look…I don’t know about none of this…I really don’t. I ain’t gonna give up on you! You hear me? I’m a stubborn bastard when I wanna be, I lost too much and I ain’t losing any more. You open your eyes Loki…you open your eyes right now! “

* * *

It hurts, everything hurts. He could still feel them on his skin and taste them from how they forced their way into his mouth.  He wanted to die; he wanted to fall into nothing. Fall like the first time - away into that encompassing darkness. Maybe this was all a dream or a nightmare; maybe he was still falling and had simply gone mad? No, his luck was never that good.   
  
Why …why did he ever have to be found? Out of all the vast emptiness of the void. Why was his flickering heart the sound that drew the titian’s attentions?   
  
_**“Loki!”**_  
  
His eyes are blurry looking out into the broken remnants of a destroyed planet. Feeling the way his very soul is drained little by little by that damned scepter. Head pounding and heart aching as if it were about to be torn asunder as his blood turned to ice inside his veins. Loki wishes for it, wishes he could command even the smallest amount of power with in him to implode and end it all.   
  
_**“I ain’t gonna give up!”**_  
  
There’s something just on the edges, like it’s not real or… no it is. Its real and he’s really a monster, really going to die when all of this over. He’ll do what they say because then at least its Midgard, at least it isn’t his home…or no he has no home, he doesn’t care if it is Asgard he just doesn’t want her to see him like this. Can’t bear the look of complete disappointment in his precious mother’s eyes. In the end, maybe he’s just a coward.   
  
_**“You hear me!”**_  
  
Why is someone shouting? Why does that voice make him feel something? He shouldn’t feel anything, “I was numb’ Loki says to himself looking down as his bloody palms and raw bleeding knees. “I was just numb then…”  Was…was. this isn’t now is it? This is something else, something he ran away from. He attacked New York; he was defeated, sent back to Asgard. Then… then…

 ** _“I lost too much”_**  
  
Who lost? “I lost…I lost everything… but then why, why do I feel now?” There was something warm on his face something enveloping him and brushing his lips, no cruel intentions behind the action just protection and love. Then… then there was more than his cell because they believed him, then there was hope, then there was….Him.  
  
 ** _“Open your eyes…”_**  
  
Loki is afraid because in his heart of hearts he does not want to destroy that love, to destroy those warm feelings that voice game him. ‘James…I cannot, it would be better if….’   
  
**_“NOW!”_ **  
  
The omega felt his spine tingle and stomachache at that forgotten part of his nature, that the willful prince always trampled down, was keening at the command. What he wants or thinks he wants falls away and is lost to the strength in those words. There is only one answer left in his mind and it feels so foreign to him because never. NEVER, has Loki the Liesmith, ever bowed his head to another with such true and total reverence. He’s never felt this pull so strong and steady.  There’s no running from this.   
  
In a way he morns this moment because he has to let go of all that pain and stubbornness that has fueled him for so long. Yet, it’s a relief because this time when he lets go - someone else will hold on to him. Someone else will carry this and let him rest, all he has to do is allow it.   
  
Maybe it isn’t a command after all? Perhaps it’s a plea under the guise of a question, a broken hearts cry that is too headstrong to stop beating. A fine match to his own.    
  
There’s only one answer.   
  
“Yes Alpha”


	22. Chapter 19: Hold onto me and I will hold onto you.

Queen Frigga was having tea with Ladies from court when news of her sons failing health reaches her.   
  
They all look up with surprise as the chamber doors fly open, standing in the entrance- a young boy wearing the colors of Lady Eir’s students. The boy’s eyes are wide and blue, his hair a tumbled mess as he had had ran through the palace as fast as his little legs would carry him. Just behind the boy, the guards stand bewildered. One places his hand on the boy’s shoulder to try to calm the little omega.   
  
A seed of fear begins to settle itself in her chest at the moment she sees the young man.   
  
The spindly little omega boy rushes into the room, his wide blue eyes meet hers as the words hurriedly fly past his lips. “My Lady! Ah, Queen, Majesty” He struggles to bow and his hands shake. “Mistress Eir has sent me; she has need of your presence immediately for Prince Loki.” The boy looks around uncertain he should be more specific with others surrounding the Queen. Court is a place full of gossiping lips and even those who have pledged their allegiance to the nobility will speak behind their backs.  Words had to be guarded at all times and this was something that the servants learned young.   
  
Frigga seeing his uncertainty, dismissed her company, and quickly crosses the room to the trembling youth. “Tell me what has happened to my son.”  
_  
A mother’s love is something than can never be questioned, weather she bore him herself or not - Loki would always be her son. She would always remember counting each of his fingers and toes and the sweet scent of holding the barely days old little boy in her arms. No matter how many centuries may pass, even when his raven hair will one day surely turn to snowy white…even then. He would always be her baby. Her little Loki.   
  
Running to the healing wing she recalls a distant memory.  
  
 _Loki had been so ill when Odin had given him to her. Those first few years she hardly let the child leave her side. Of course, he grew stronger, yet still not as sound as most boys his age._  
 _It had been a beautiful summer day. She had allowed Thor to carry the small boy out to the gardens while she tended to council matters at her husband’s side. The handmaids would be nearby, she told herself. Still she could not shake the unease and when the pale maid came to the door of the council building…Frigga just knew. Her heart shattered with in her breast thinking that something horrid had befallen the little one. Something so dark had always haunted her visions of him. If only then she had known, it was not the follies of childhood that would do him harm but the reckless acts of a young man whose heart was broken._  
 _Thor had not been paying attention and carried the little one into the low hanging branches of a tree with him. A split second was all it took, and little Loki had tumbled out of his brother’s arms. Her elder son had been so afraid and felt so badly that Loki had been harmed under his watch, even more so when Thor had to stand before his father to be punished for not looking after his younger sibling better._  
 _Overall, it had not been that bad, the boy simply had the wind knocked out of him and the fearful little gasps sounded far worse than they had been. The maid had been so terrified, still a young omega with no pups of her own. Had it been one of the older omegas - they would have likely picked the child up, coddled him until he found his breath, and allowed the boys to go back to their play. Even having Eir’s assurances that Loki had been fine, Frigga couldn’t help but cry seeing that tear soaked rounded face under a mess of black curls, reaching out for her with his little bruised arms. All she wanted to do was hold him and never let go, shield him away from everything because surely he needed it. Because she was his mother, the Norns had given him to her, her little Loki. The gift for her empty arms and broken heart.  Maybe it was then she realized that he could never know he was not hers. More-so than saving him she was saving herself._   
  
She had protected him too much, teaching him how to master his siedr despite others thinking it unseemly for a prince - even an omega one. Frigga’s wish had been that he would take up the healing arts, but Loki wanted to chase after his brother and learned to wield his magic in the art of war and deception.    
  
Frigga wanted so badly to put her foot down and keep him behind the safe walls of Asgard, but she couldn’t. No more than one could tame the breeze. Perhaps that was why she did not press her husband to tell Loki the truth, because she did not want her precious child to think himself separate from her…from all of them.   
  
Every time she heard the child tell their cruel stories about the monstrous Jotun, she broke a little inside. Her sweet boy was not a monster, nor were the peoples of Jotenhime, they were simply different. Many a night after Loki’s fall had she laid awake wishing she had done more, said more, been a better mother.   
  
Now he suffered and she as much as Odin had a hand in that suffering. She only hoped that now she would not be too late. 

* * *

  
  
As Frigga entered the healing wing, she made her way through the double doors and found a surprising sight before her. A happy surprise as she had been so sure by the messenger’s words that something far darker waited.   
  
Loki was alive and well (or as well as one could be) clinging to the mortal Barnes, blood smeared on her son’s face as he shook like a leaf. He looked so frail, too frail for one so proud. The entire time the alpha held him close, the sergeants remaining arm wrapped firmly around Loki’s heaving back. She realizes that she made the right choice allowing them to be together, when she hears Barnes speaking softly.  The alphas words of assurance filled with care touched her heart. This is what she always wanted for Loki. To know a love that did not ask for anything in return. A love that simply stayed nearby and bore the weight of the hard times as well as the good.   
  
The Queen thanks the Norns for bringing James Barnes to Asgard. Saying a silent prayer of thanks that this mortal found his way through the rivers of time and the branches of Yggdrasil. Frigga has always trusted in the grate fates, even when Loki feel from the bifrost and her heart shattered. She believed that it was for a reason. Even out of such suffering there had to be a reason.   
  
Looking at James Barnes, his scars and broken body aside. He is a warrior. The sergeant holds his head up and his spine straight, there is something more there now; a resolve that had been battered and torn had returned over these many days. When she first saw the mortal, he seemed to be half a soul. Perhaps he had simply found that missing half.  
  
 From this day forward, she will count him among her sons.

* * *

  
Eir does not try to separate them; in fact, she knows that would be the worst possible thing to do if the flare of pheromones was any indication. Instead, she clears the room of her assistance and motions the queen to follow her.   
  
Frigga feels reluctant, she sees how vulnerable and weak her son looks at the moment, the war in her head partly wants her to go to him, and another part tells her now is not the time. Looking back at the pair once more, a brief vision flashes in her mind; of the two of them together some were far away, the smiles on their faces in shared conversation by a fireside. There is something so calm and natural about it. As the vision dissipates, she turns away, hoping that the fates will be so kind as to allow this for her son. Hoping that her broken boy will find a purpose beyond anger and use his talents for something kinder, something to bring joy to this world. Perhaps, this mortal plucked out of time and tested by the cruelties of his world - would be the one to open Loki’s heart to a gentler existence.   
  
“What happened?” The question falls from the queen’s lips as soon as Eir ushered her into a separate room.   
  
The healer frowns and looks away, this was her choice and the failure rested solely on her shoulders. “I pushed him, Loki has been making efforts to shield things from me during his treatments. I had hoped he would agree to finally let go, yet he did not.”  
  
Frigga looked at her old friend reading the hesitation in the healer’s eyes, “He declined and yet.. You were able to push him how? Loki is not one so easily overcome once his mind is set to something. I also know that these treatments are with the patient’s assistance.”  
  
“Not this treatment my Lady. I would beg your forgiveness if I felt true shame for the action however, I only feel regret for the outcome. I would do so again if it meant breaking the hold those beasts had on your son.”  Eir bowed her head, this was the one thing she had promised she would never do. “I drugged him against his will my Queen”   
  
“I see.” Frigga wanted to feel anger, part of her thinks that rage will come and yet it does not. She has trusted Eir with the lived of her sons for years and knows that the healer would never harm them.  “And there was no other choice? He would not yield to your reasoning?”  
  
Eir would have told her otherwise, the healers honesty was above reproach, “I feared that if we continued on as we have the seeds of control possibly placed there by Thanos and his ilk would fester ever deeper in the prince’s mind. As with any poison, once of the mind must be sussed out as swiftly as possible.”   
  
The Queen took a seat, she never wanted any of her children to suffer. Yet life itself was filled with suffering that could not be held at bay by her word alone. Loki had always been so stubborn, “He is as much Odin’s son as he loves to deny it… pig headed these men I love.” She looked down at her hands, how they had aged over time, perhaps more for all the moments she found herself wringing them in frustration. “We’re you able to ease his suffering in your pursuit?”  
  
“Yes, much of the scepters control had focused itself on the shame that Loki held so closely. I feel that this. Other, knew very well how to insure Loki’s total control. The hold is broken, yet the pain will remain. That I cannot cure, only time and  with hope…the care of a good alpha.”

* * *

  
  
“Everything’s gonna be ok doll. “James spoke softly against the trembling omegas ear. “I got you. “he holds Loki and hopes the ravenette will believe him.   
  
If Barnes is being honest, he doesn’t know if it will be all right. However, saying so would not do Loki any good. He has never seen the omega this fragile in front of him before and it’s terrifying. All he can do is clean the blood from Loki’s face and try his best to calm the omega while he shakes off the remnants of the memory.   
  
Loki mumbles that he can never have an alpha, that no matter what he feels or things he feels it can never be because he’s ‘filthy’. The words are broken and coarse from over the slender mans chapped lips and the feel like bullets striking the alphas heart. James doesn’t want to hear what the Chitatari and the Kree did to Loki because if he does…then he ‘ll want to hunt them all down until there are none of them left.   
  
“I am a grave, there are those who wish for nothing but my death or submission. They will not stop; I will never be free of it….” Loki groans and presses his face against the alpha’s neck.   
  
It’s clear he’s still so shaken and Barnes worries that perhaps Loki’s mind has been fractured beyond repair. Even so, there is a part of him that knows if it is… will never leave. He will beg Thor and Shield and who the hell ever else he needs to just to stay because James truly believes that if he leaves Loki in such a state that the omega will be left alone or stowed away in some white room.   
  
He’s not sure if that’s how they do things here but he has memories of his life before. When Bucky was little his mother took him with her to see her younger brother who was in an asylum. He remembered the white tile floors and the white was walls. The nurses with their white dresses and little hats. The screaming from the rooms and patients in slippers and robes. In a flash he could see Loki leaning against one of those white washed walls in a pair of muted pajamas…staring into nothing.  Those intelligent green eyes gone glassy and blank.   
  
No. He wasn’t going to let that happen.   
  
“Come on doll, you’re ok. Can you sit up for me?”   
  
Maybe it’s the alpha scent that helps give Loki that little nudge back toward dignity but he manages to sit under his own power and slowly swing his legs over the side of the table.   
  
“Don’t you worry ok? Nobody’s gonna come for you and get through me. I’m-a damn good shot” Bucky sooths with a little smile that makes Loki chuckle in spite of his nerves.   
  
James wished he could carry Loki back to his room, and must have said as much out loud when Loki slips off the table onto unsteady feet and smiles saying “maybe one day I shall will allow you such an honor. “   
  
As the pair, exit the healing wing, others in the palace see them and whispers start to go around court. 

* * *

  
News does not take long to circulate, not with eyes and ears around every corner. Not the mention the lives of nobility tend to draw the attention of the courts. Especially the life of the Odin’s adopted son, the child that cause destruction in his wake- in not only Asgard but two other realms. Therefore, it is not so surprising when the gossip reaches the king.  
  
Odin hears whispers about the mortal and Loki seen together so closely. He was already unhappy with the heat fiasco and had words with his wife. Little good that had done.  Frigga was always so willful, there were times he loved that about her and other that it grated on his nerves. She felt Loki deserves some happiness, to a point Odin agrees.   
  
However, there are those in Asgard who would wish Loki dead. Those in his own council who looked upon the king poorly for sparing the mad omega.   
  
‘he is still a frost giant! Look what he has done!’  
  
‘The boy has made alliances with beasts, he is a liar and a renowned one at that!’  
  
‘Surely we cannot believe that the Liesmith was forced in his attack on Midgard.’  
  
The king had heard all of their arguments and the arrival of the damaged alpha from the mortal realm did little to cool the ire of the council. His own brothers were less than impressed knowing their nephew and one day king of Asgard was extending the aid of the golden realm to the ‘pitiful mortals’.    
  
It was clear that Thor came to accept the Avengers as kin, because of that, they and their world now fell under Asgard’s watchful eyes. Now this… Odin just did not understand why his sons have such affection for Midgardians.   
  
He had kept Loki from the courts and from suitors for so long. There was always a fear that should Loki bond and produce an heir then everyone would know what Loki was.  Having kept the secrete so long there was no way to tell him, and then…then everything went to Hel.   
  
“Foolish children…” Odin mutters, looking down from the balcony and out to the sea. He thinks of his own mother…the secret of her ancestry. The secrets his father told to protect her, even to go so far as to take a chambermaid as a concubine to bear his heirs. She…she was still his mother, even when he never saw her ‘true’ face.  “I only wanted the best for you…”  he says to himself.  
  
“You were short sighted, we both were.”    
  
Odin turns to see Frigga entering. She looks less angry with him than the last time, which is good considering her irritation is far more uncomfortable than any battle he has ever fought.   
  
“Do you still believe this a good match? Barnes and Loki?” he asks, watching the soft look warm her face.  
  
“Aye and I think it best if neither of us meddles from here on. Loki must learn to stand on his own and that if he must lean on another it must be his alpha.”

* * *

  
Once alone in Loki’s room, James bolted the door and led the omega over to the bed.   
  
“People will talk James.”  Loki comments with a smirk. As tired, as he is he can still muster up a little humor at the mortals expense.   
  
 Barnes chuckles and wanders through the nobles chamber to draw a bath “Let em talk, I‘d like to see em say it to my face personally.”   
  
They are not alone long when a guard comes knocking to check on them. The word of the wayward prince and the prisoner alpha is of course far too scandalous to simply let slip by. James however, makes it clear by growling through the half open door. The guard would have said more but  Loki’s voice not carried through the chamber asking the guard to leave. “You may ask my mother if you have question of whom I have in my chambers,” he said, sending the beta guard sulking away as the door was snapped shut in his face.   
  
Loki felt wrung and weak, his head too heavy for all of this mess. Moreover, realizing he soiled himself during his apparent fit in the healing room. The omegas shame is palpable, only children would behave so and here he was covered in filth before the kindly alpha.   
  
“Hey, hey listens its fine” The alpha says as he comes closer once again. The words accompanied by the sound of water splashing into the bath in the background. “Come on doll, let me help you. You will feel better I promise. “  
  
For once Loki dose not shirk away the help, allowing the alpha to remove his garments. Only once does he looks up with a deprecating smile, “I had wished to have you divest me under better circumstances.”  
  
“Maybe another time…” James paused slipping off Loki’s tunic as his eyes fall on the old whip scars littering the gods back. His touch is light, feeling the omega tense for a moment.  He leans in on instinct and brushed his cheek against Loki’s shoulder. “Let’s get you cleaned up. “ 

* * *

  
The last time another person bathed him, it was always a servant or when he was very young - his mother. This was very different from that. It was quiet and tender, not at all sexual as one would think it to be. James sat beside the bath on a small stool and ran gentle fingers through his hair.  
  
The alpha did his best to help Loki forget. Talking about the past, his Brooklyn and the sport of baseball. He spoke of the Italian countryside and the hills of Austria. Loki felt himself sinking into to those words little by little.   
  
“I would like to see your Midgard, not  the way I saw it last. I want to see it as you remember it. The beauty of which you speak, I want to experience it.”   
  
“Been a long time, things change.”  
  
Loki hummed and turned his head, reaching back and taking the alphas hand, “Can they change for the better?”  
  
“I hope so, no…I know so.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	23. Chapter 20: James Buchannan Barnes, of Brooklyn New York.

Relationships are not easy, anyone who says that after you find ‘the one’ that it’s all sunshine and roses - is full of crap. They take time and work, work that is back breaking that can take out all the blood and tears you are willing to give. You get what you put in and you can’t just expect everything to be effortless. Even so, if you find ‘the one’ all that is worth it.   
  
There is a natural order to relationships, they had to progress to survive. James taken the important first step and made his interest known so now he should start courting the omega properly. Right?   
  
He had a few hazy memories of growing up back in Brooklyn and having to sit down in the kitchen with his sisters while his mother gave them all ‘the talk’ at once. Not that it applied to him at the time but she had said that even as a beta he should know how to court an omega and his sisters would need to know what to expect from their suitors. He couldn’t remember the rest as it seemed to fade together and fray at the edges.  Try as he might to grasp for the memory it slipped away like dust in the wind.   
  
That was ages ago and he didn’t even know if it was still done the same way, or if Asgard even followed the same kind of customs. So far it seemed like everything was so different here. Still, it was the only thing he knew as sparse as the memories were- it was all he had to go on.  As the old adage said ‘fake it till you make it’.  
  
It was with this determination that caused James to spend one morning in the gardens picking out flowers for his chosen omega.  He could not remember the color or significance of each so he hoped the gesture itself would still be enough. They looked beautiful and smelled just right. These blossoms were something that would complement the raven-haired prince in every way. James had been feeling very proud of himself as he bound the colorful blossoms and presented them to Loki that afternoon.    
  
The reaction was less than positive.   
  
Loki stared at the flowers with a confused look on his face before placing them in water. There was an uneasy silence before finally, the prince took mercy, “James, I am sure you mean well in your gesture however, in Asgard it is customary to present flowers for the dead or a warrior going into battle. As I am neither I shall assume there is some other reason?”   
  
‘Gifts for the dead’ …perfect… just. Fucking. Perfect. Barnes wanted to crawl into a hole and die, “Yeah, back home it’s a little different. We give flowers to ya know…” He looked away feeling the heat rise on his neck and ears, this should not be so hard for a grown man. Then again, for Barnes this was like starting over again. He could not remember doing this for anyone. “for courting.” he finished lamely, gesturing to the blooms.   
  
The omega smirked and leaned in, “Oh is that so?  Well Sergeant you are fortunate I am a benevolent god and shall over look this cultural difference and accept your tribute.” Loki eyed the pink flush over the alpha’s cheeks and brushed his lips over them. “Just this once.”  
  
It was disproportionately funny to Loki as Barnes tripped over himself after the brief contact. Loki often mad alphas irate with his behavior but hardly ever did he garner such a sheepish and downright adorable reaction. The omega wondered if this was customary behavior among the mortals, along with their gifts of plants. 

* * *

  
After the flower fiasco, Bucky was sulking in the warrior’s hall. He had been tasked with shining shields and putting away the training staffs. This was usually a job for pageboys but it fell under his tasks as penance.  It made Bucky feel good to be doing something useful for a change. The fact that even one-handed he could still do something of value. He knew that back home he would have likely been thrown in a prison cell and left to rot inside his own mind. Then he would have never met Loki.   
  
There had been times when Barnes wasn’t sure if he really deserved this, that maybe he was getting away a little too easy. As the Winter Solider the Asset had killed so many people. Being brainwashed did not undo those sins. Those people were still dead, people like Howard Stark.    
  
Yeah, he remembered Howard. The way the alpha would look a little too long at Steve and it would make Barnes want to slap that look right off his cocky mustached face. Steve never seemed to notice though, or at least didn’t let on that he did. James remember something else to, it was patchy and jumbled but he remembered standing on a street corner watching a black town car swarmed by reporters as a Howard and his omega left a hospital. A bundle of blankets protected in her arms. He’d been sent there to watch, or no. maybe he hadn’t.    
  
James had a few memories like that, ones that made his brain feel too heavy and his skull too tight. Some part of him seemed to understand that they were not the Assets memories, Bucky had tried to escape before.  Maybe he thought he could go to Howard for help…how ironic that all seemed now.   
  
“Barnes… I say are you well?” A questioning voice lit from the entryway.  
  
James looked up and noticed Fandral walking into the training hall. Had the Asgardian called out to him? “I… yeah, yeah I’m fine. Ya need something?”   
  
Dashing sat on the other side of the table and eyed the polished shields and daggers. The work was done well considering the mortals handicap. “Not really, though as I hear it - you might.”  
  
“How’s that?” James was not stupid, of course he knew people were talking about himself and Loki. It would be hard not to considering both of their status as ‘criminals’. Regardless of any reform.  
  
The blond alpha leaned back against the table. “Loki, you wish to court him yes?”  
  
“Yeah, so say I do? You hear to talk me out of it?”   
  
Fandral had to laugh at the mortal Alphas defensive nature, “No, perhaps to lend a helping hand. I have no qualms with you courting Loki. In fact, I would like to see you have success in the matter.”   
  
Setting down a finished sword, James side-eyed the Asgardian. “I wouldn’t have figured that. Not with you anyway.”  
  
The blond chuckled and shook his head, “Sif told you I suppose, or Thor?”   
  
“Does it matter who told me?”  
  
Fandral shook his head, “No, though it is the past I assure you. I was young and impulsive in those days. I thought perhaps it would be a good match and…  
  
“Bullshit.” the soldier glared now, “Don’t try and play him off like it didn’t mean anything.”  
  
“Fine.” Fandral lifted his hands in surrender. “I loved him.” the alphas voice softened as he gazed out on the training area. “I loved him for all his cutting edges and tricks. I wanted him more than anything and when he denied me, I hated him for it. I hated Odin for it. Watching someone change and become cold is the worst feeling. Having to set aside the feelings for someone because in the end your image of them is not who they truly are …is crushing.”  
  
The brunette snorted, “because he’s…. what you call it? Jotun?”   
  
“No, because Loki developed thorns, as beautiful as that omega is he will cut you to ribbons if you try and get close.”  Fandral looked down at his hands, thinking of those days when the ravenette slender pale hands still fit in his own. “Yet you come here and he becomes as soft as silk. A man with skill such as that…I find myself bowing to your prowess.”   
  
James began putting away the staffs one by one, “It ain’t prowess, and I just don’t treat him like glass.”  
  
“No one has ever treated Loki as though he were fragile. He made it stunningly clear at a young age he was not to be trifled with.” Fandral corrected, watching the mortal spin on of the staffs fluidly before storing it away.  
  
“Did I say fragile?” Barnes smirked. “Nah, glass cuts. It can kill you on a sharp edge once it’s been broken or refract all the colors in creation. Too many people treat him like he’s dangerous…I just want him to shine.”  
  
Fandral smiled to himself, this mortal seemed to understand more than he ever could. “Then allow me to help you, to help him if I can.”

* * *

  
Dashing told Bucky how the courting of Asgard was traditionally done.   
  
“Normally you would as permission from his family’s head Alpha; I take it that at the very least Thor has given you his blessings in this matter. Though it would not truly be an issue at court because technically Loki has no head Alpha.” Fandral began   
  
The mortal found his head spinning with the intricacies of court. It seemed trivial that so many people spent time doing nothing but casting judgment on each other.  No wonder the omega had issues, the life of a royal may be privileged but that came with a price. There was little to no privacy, even as a child the nobility had to maintain a cretin status and decorum. For Loki that was not easy due to his boisterous elder sibling.   
“On Asgard, men hunt beasts and give hides or skulls as trophies. Some have the claws fashioned into daggers or jewelry for their lovers.  Those who can afford it also have fine garments made in their colors to give their omega. If the omega accepts the gift, then they begin accompanying one another at court.”  
  
“Great…things were so much easier with flowers…” James groaned. He was going to need a lot more help.  
  
Thankfully, he did not have to look too far.   
  
Thor was more than agreeable to takes Bucky out to hunt some ‘ferocious beast’. Apparently the greater the threat of death, the better the tribute. Barnes was starting to wonder how anyone survived long enough to bond. 

* * *

  
Night was beginning to overtake the golden sky above as the alphas trekked through the forests. They had spent all day tracking   what Thor called a Furulve, Bucky thought that sounded like something was caught in the big man’s throat.   
  
“So this…Furu…what’s it, what’s it like?”  
  
Thor thought for a moment, grimacing as he looked up through the trees at the waning light, “There is nothing on your Midgard like it exactly. If I were to compare the fearsome Furulve, I would say it is most closely related to your mountain lions - though larger. The Furulve has poisonous spins along its tail to paralyze and a great claw to rip its prey. Its pelt is the color of night with dapples of moonbeam filtering through the trees. With large eyes to see in the darkness.”  
  
If that was not terrifying enough, the blonde alpha then explain that they were coming up on the lair of one of these creatures. “The claws should make fine daggers.”  
  
They had been walking through the moonlit darkness for what felt like forever, until Thor raised his hand in a halting motion. “The smell of death is here. I do not think it wise to linger here. The Furulve may be fierce but there are fiercer things still that prowl the darkness.” Having said that, the blond alpha pointed toward what looked like a cave mouth a few dozen yards away. There appeared to be a carcass laid out in front of it.   
  
“damn…” Barnes covered his mouth looking at the ravaged corpse. “what the hell did this?”  
  
The thunderer at his side poke at the gutted remains. “Something we dare not tempt. We shall leave before we to join this poor creature in its predators belly.”  
  
However, before Thor can even raise his hammer and carry them both away - the soldiers ears pick up on a sound from inside the cave. “Hey wait, maybe there’s another one in there? We came this far  and if we leave not the other one isn’t going to stick around for long.”  
  
The blond frowns and shakes his head. It’s an odd feeling being the responsible one for a change, nonetheless, Thor knows that if anything happens to the mortal it will be his honor at steak.  Thus, he was forced to follow the foolish mortal as Barnes made his way into the cave.   
  
James drew his blade and crept along the cave wall, the echoing sounds made the creature sound huge. ‘Could he really do this?’ It seemed insane and archaic to hunt something down and kill it to curry favor with a potential mate. Funny how many in the golden kingdom liked to point out how ‘advanced they were.’   
Yet as he drew closer, the sound grew…smaller?  
  
Thor was a few paces behind, half watching the brunettes back and half keeping an eye on the caves entrance, when barns darted around a corner.   
  
Fearing the worst, Thor took his hammer and followed. Only to find Barns kneeling over …a nest?  
  


“Hey, hey cool it there lil punk. M’not gonna hurt ya.” Barnes spoke softly and scooped up the ‘fearsome’ Furulve. This one of course was much smaller and mewled helplessly with its still closed eyes.  By the look of the fresh umbilical stump, James assumed the kit was a day at most in age or even hours.   
  
“Sergeant, it is best to leave that creature were it lay.” Thor warned watching the other man hold the tiny creature in the crook of his arm.   
  
Barnes studied the little creature, plush down fur (the color of he could not quiet make out in the low light), and thin yet impressive little claws. There was no way it would survive here alone, if it had been a week or so older, even a few days -maybe. Seeing the size of the fallen creature outside, James beloved, they must mature at a decent rate to get that big. As is stood this little one would not make it through the night with out its mother.   
  
“She was protecting her kit, the one out side I mean. You said these things were thought but she probably just had this one not long before something bigger came. She was protecting her kid.” James said almost reverently.  
  
“Aye and the kits survival were insured by her sacrifice. However, I should not like to do the same.”   
  
“I’m taking it.”  
  
Thor looked completely dumb struck as the brunette alpha stood with the kit tucked into his tunic already walking toward the cave entrance. “Friend Barnes I must protest!”  
  
“Protest all ya like, I ain’t leaving this kit here to die.”  
  
Something told the blonde alpha that no amount of convincing was going to change the mortals mind. He just hoped that his father would not be to angry to have a potentially dangerous wild animal in the palace. 

* * *

  
They did not sneak back into the palace…If anyone says they were sneaking they would be wrong.  
  
Creeping or perhaps Stealth walking is the better term.   
  
The sun was just rising when James slipped into his chamber and liberated the little kit from a satchel on his shoulder. It had thankfully slept most of the way. Thor has warned him that even so small - the barbs of the creatures tail were potent enough to deaden a limb for an anywhere from a few moments up to an hour. Barnes could not afford to lose the use of another appendage so he was ginger in placing the tiny creature on a pillow.   
  
“Don’t wake up and kill me in a couple of hours…please.”  The brunette chuckled watching the lil ball of dark fur curl up and sink into the soft cushion with a pleasant little sound.   
  
True to his hopes, Barnes did not wake up to, two pounds of furious wild animal. In fact, he woke up to the pillow at his side wiggling and tiny mewling whimpers as the still blind baby wiggled about looking for comfort.   
  
“Hey there lil ….” Barnes paused wondering if doing a junk check would get him bitten of stung, he chose to risk it. Lifting up the squirming kit by the scruff. “Lil girl, you’re ok.”   
  
The kit calmed as her paws touched back down on the cushion, “Well, guess it’s time to go introduce you to your new mom.” 

* * *

  
Loki knew that James had gone out hunting the evening before, he wasn’t worried. If you don’t count the number of times he attempted to scry for the mortal’s location on the maps of Asgard. That was more curiosity than anything.   
  
No one had ever gone out to hunt for a favor for him before, well they had it just seemed like a lifetime ago. In addition, he never accepted any of his former suitor’s gifts. It was far too easy to tell that they either had a servant go out and kill the creature for them or they had no idea what Loki would like. Bringing him Arrows made from some tree that only grew on a far away mountain - when Loki had never been much with a bow; Fine silk robes - in some ostentatious color like orange or pink. Hide or bed furs when Loki favored softer more fluid linen as he rarely felt a chill.   
  
They never asked him or even spoke to him before hand. The omega knew why of course, it was because they didn’t really care. He was a prince of Asgard.    
  
There had only been once that Loki even dare accept anything and that…well the all father put a stop to that. Of course that was another worry; Odin had been oddly silent about the mortal alpha. Perhaps now it did not matter since all in Asgard knew Loki was little more than a Jotun runt-playing prince in the golden palace. A mindless villain stalking the halls of the healing wing. Maybe they thought that of Barnes as well.  
  
Whatever the case, Loki had slept restlessly and woken early to bathe and take his tea. Still, there had been no sign of Barnes. There were whispers among the guards that Thor and the mortal had returned but there was no chatter of them bringing anything with them. Perhaps they had been unsuccessful.   
  
No, Thor would have not returned otherwise.   
  
The omega was left to sit and stew until early afternoon when a knock rattled his chamber door.   
  
It was James, standing there with his arm tucked behind his back and odd smirk on his face.   
  
“So I guess you know where I’ve been.”  
  
Loki eyes the alpha, his posture careful as he cancelled whatever it was. “Indeed I do. I am please you have returned no worse for wear. After all Thor can be…..Thor.”  
  
Barnes chuckled and Loki felt his head skip a beat at the low rumble. When had he allowed that! He certainly had not; silly heart and it’s want to stutter at something as frivolous as an alpha.    
  
“We went looking for something called a Furulve. Found one actually.”  
  
Loki was impressed because he knew the beasts claws where often used to make fine daggers. In addition, the larger quills of a male could be used to make fine throwing knifes. “Well, I shall have to give my best to the weapons makers for working so quickly.”  
  
Barnes hesitates, “yeah well…it’s not a dagger.”   
  
Having no time to question, Loki watched as the alpha slowly drew his arm around to present a small Furulve kitten. Its long tail curled around the brunette's forearm half-asleep in his hand.   
  
Loki found himself reaching out to take the little creature without even thinking. In the back of his mind, he knew what it would grow into. Yet now he did not seem to care, “How...?”  
  
“It’s Ma was killed, I couldn’t just leave her out there to die.” Barnes leaned forward peering at the little kitten lying in the cradle of the omegas arms as it began to stir. Large jade eyes blinked open at both of them, wide and expressive taking in the pair before mewling and blinking slowly.   
  
The omega wanted to laugh, of course Barnes would be sent out to kill. With his past, he very well could have and yet…here had saved a life. Loki remembered a conversation they had about the ability to change, to grow out of what their pasts had made of them. If this was not proof, enough he did not know what was.   
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going through some stuff right now, depression and anxiety. I'm having to learn to depend on myself for once and yeah its not going great. I'm sorry for the lateness with an update but between my emotional turmoil and upper respiratory ick i have just been a mess. I hope this was good for everyone.


	24. Chapter 21: I will be the judge of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still dealing with personal issues, if you are still excited for this story i thank you dearly.

The kit, or as she was now named - Duchess, exuded all the marks of royalty as she pranced behind the former prince of Asgard. Little head held high and dangerous tail switching to-and-fro behind her.  Daring any stray curious hands with large twinkling eyes and promise of pain.   
  
Her name had actually been James’ idea. The alpha’s reason being- that he could not pronounce any of the names Loki had suggested. Luckily, the omega found the name compatible with his new little companion.  
  
However, not everyone was a fan of little Duchess.   
  
The Furulve kit had a habit of sheltering in the shadow of her new ‘mothers’ robes and darting out at passers by. These little games of chase were starting to give some of the servant’s unfortunate twitches.  The little rambunctious beastie had become a bit of a terror in the palace kitchens to boot.   
  
Now nervous glances found their way to the omega prince that - if Loki was honest - he enjoyed. It reminded him of his former self, all the games of his youth and little tricks he would play on the palace staff.  They feared him and it made him feel noticed and powerful.  No one had looked at him with fear since the day he was sentenced in chains. All they had for him was varying grades of disgust to pity. Such ugly faces that drove home to him that he was little more than Thano’s pawn and Odin’s cast away trinket.    
  
It was funny in a way; he didn’t feel loved until he was hated. Maybe hate was a rather strong term from the angry shouts cook hollered as she chased the little kit from the dining all. Though it would appear, Duchess had the upper hand if the sizable fish secured in her jaws was anything to go by.   
  
Duchess gave the once mischievous prince back those happy memories of lighthearted trickery. Perhaps it was a little disruptive, no one had been harmed as of yet so why not?  
  
Not everyone would agree with that sentiment. 

* * *

  
  
“Do calm down she is only playing, after all, she‘s still a baby.” Loki said, waving a placating hand at Sigyn who had been chased atop a wardrobe by the little kit. Duchess all the while snarling and sinking her claws into the wood making a slow ascent on the furniture’s face.   
  
James rolled his eyes and plucked the kit off by the scruff, Duchess going completely limp with a pitching little mewl as if to say ‘you ruined my fun dad’.    
  
Sigyn breathed out her thanks and scowled at her former master. “Take care your …baby, doesn’t go after one of the guards. What if I had been armed Loki! Think if she had gone after Lady Sif, surely an alpha shield maiden would not take such roughhousing kindly!”  
  
“You would not have harmed her. As for Sif, well…Duchess is far more intelligent when choosing her prey.” The ravenette replied airily taking the offered cub from the alpha.    
  
“He’s right.” Banes chipped in as he helped the omega down from her perch.   
  
She scoffed and eyed the fallen prince cradling the little bundle of murder. “Still, she won’t be that small forever. One day she’ll be too big for the palace and you know that.” 

* * *

  
It was true that Loki knew the kit would grow, though part of him had foolishly begun to hope in these passing days that he too could grow. Not in the same sense, but that one-day…. one day he would not be here in the palace or even Asgard. Perhaps one day he and James could travel the realms together. Perhaps they could find a place far away with wide-open spaces, forests filled with trees and the energy of life. He did not need people or things, not these golden walls or the fine gardens.   
  
Loki knew what it was like to live in the shadows and filthy cells. He had gone without luxury and made it; in a way, he had come to have pride in that. The same way James had broken away from those known as Hydra, they survived their falls. Perhaps together they could rise again.   
  
This was not a foolish notion of grandeur or the need for power. Loki had tasted power and felt the weight of a throne. These things didn’t truly suit him. He wanted learn and to live, to feel useful for once. More than anything, he wanted his name to mean more than misdeeds and mischief. While the later was good fun, it wasn’t something he wanted to be remembered for. He wanted his life to have meaning. To have something he could be proud of.   
  
More than that. He wanted to one day look into the eyes of child and know they would understand what he could never accept about himself. That they belonged.   
  
Loki never harbored thoughts such as these before, but now. Now he thought of a little girl with dark brown curls and blue gray eyes. A child that was all his solider and not an ounce of the ugliness that lived in him.   
  
He dreamed of a day in some wonderful distant future, a place that was far away and quiet. A place unknown to those who would seek to harm him, protected and unseen from the universe as a whole. A place where he could forget the past and simply live with his odd little mortal that seemed to break down his walls. Loki dreamed of regain his siedr and keeping James safe from the men who had taken so much from him.  Loki had never wanted to care for another person so deeply, or even felt he had the capacity to do so…and yet…  
  
Here was this man with his cocky little smiles and those mesmerizing grey blue eyes. There was a time the omega would have turned his nose up at such weakness, now he would give his last breath to secure this love. 

* * *

  
  
“You know, I have read the myths of me on Midgard.” Loki said one after noon, watching James valiantly trying to teach Duchess to sit and stay. The alphas efforts seemed more or less for naught. He really should have known better than attempt to coax their little prim rose into foolish party tricks. She, much like her mother, was not amused in playing by the rules.   
  
“Sorry, I wasn’t much for mythology.” James shrugged; shaking his head as once again, Duchess seemed more interested in harassing Muninn. The poor crow had been tasked by its master to watch over the trio. Odin had caught wind of the newest guest in their midst and while he disapproved it did not seem worth the fight with his wife.  Unfortunately, for old Muninn, this meant having the little Furulve snapping at his tail feathers whenever he was in range.   
  
Loki meanwhile, leaned back against the ancient willow, looking up into the hanging branches and letting his eyes adjust to the pinpoints of light through the lush canopy above. “They call me the mother of monsters in your story books. I am not sure were they would gather that though. Perhaps the thought of something monstrous giving birth to other creatures of nightmare seemed fitting.”   
  
Barnes bit his tongue at the comment regarding ‘something monstrous’ he hated to hear Loki say things like that but he learned that no amount of correction was going to convince the omega otherwise. He would have to find a more tactile approach to convincing the omega that he was not a monster. “Well there just stories, nothing worse than old side shows at the fair. People want to believe in fantastic things. I remember when I was a kid I’d go with my sisters and pay a penny to see the bearded lady or a guy covered in tattoos stick a nail up his nose.” The memory flowed like water without even thinking of it. It would not be until later that night when James would silently sit and try so hard to remember to color of his sister’s eyes or the name of the street they lived on. His mind was like a net with holes. Random images might catch but there was no grantee they wouldn’t simply escape a moment later.    
  
“That sounds…bizarre,” Loki wrinkled his nose, letting out oomph as Duchess pounced into his lap and nuzzled at his stomach with a hopeful little mewl.  He smiled and stroked her large silken ears.  “She shouldn’t be awake this time of day you know. Most of her kind is active at dusk and through the night.”   
  
James shrugged and sat down next to them, letting duchess slink into his lap and paw at his chest for attention. “We aren’t though, and far as she knows we are her family.”  
  
Loki watched the alpha and smiled, savoring this unfamiliar peace. “Then the tales of Midgard are finally correct. I’m the mother of this little monster.” 

* * *

  
He just there to say goodnight.   
  
Yeah…that’s exactly how James ended up with a lap full of Omega who was all angles and teeth and God…if Loki kept grinding down on his crotch like that they were going to have a problem.   
  
He just came by to say goodnight.  
  
Loki had dragged him in by the collar and before the alpha could even react, he was being kissed hard and needy. Long slender hands on either side of his face as the taller man walked him backward and onto the bed.  Just a few feet away Duchess snoozed on a plush little pillow.   
  
“Mmm…ah…L’ok… Wa’t…”  Barnes gasped out between the fierce makeout session.  He was sure Loki wasn’t in heat, but damn if the omega wasn’t just as demanding.   
  
“No. I will not and you cannot make me.” Loki purred and rolled his hips down again earning a deep groan from the poor alpha. “See, you don’t want me to stop do you James? I’ve seen how you watch me; do you know I’ve taken to not wearing any undergarments during our evening walks in the gardens? Hoping you might very well loose your senses and pin me to a tree.”   
  
“Oh Jesus…”   
  
“Sorry dear I’m not into sandals and crucifixion. Maybe a bit of bondage though.” Loki smirked  
  
Wrapping his arm tight around the omegas waist the mortal was able to flip their position and move n a counter attack to the ravenette slender throat. “I Want to see…”   
  
“Ah…” Loki moans and arches at the contact. “What to see what? Tell me what you want love.”   
  
“I want t’see you, all of you, the real you.”  
  
The omega felt his blood run cold and he pushed away gently. “James…you do not know what you are asking of me.”  
  
“I do babe” The mortal sighed and breathed in the omegas scent. A primal part of his altered brain purred with satisfaction, begging him to make his claim. “I ain’t in this for kicks and I don’t want ya think that you aren’t good enough. Before you say that’s not true…I can read you, I can see it in your eyes that you don’t feel like you belong. But let me tell ya right now, you belong with me, were both fucked up and broken but that doesn’t matter because all our broken parts fit just right together. You‘re mine baby doll…you hear.”  
  
“James… Sweet man you are.” Loki had a sad little smiled curling on his face. “You won’t be able to touch me, it could hurt and I never want that. You’ve been hurt enough.” Loki said touching the metal cap placed over the stump of the Alphas shoulder.  
  
Barnes sat back and unbuckled the chest harness that held the metal cover in place. He hadn’t been without it in front of another other than Eir the day she put it on. “Pain or not, it’s me and for you … for you I’d go through it again. I never thought I’d say that but if you needed me to give up my other arm to save your life…I’d do it. I’ve spent life times destroying things and I’m done with that.”    
  
With total conviction the alpha removed the only thing hiding what hydra had done to him, revealing the twisted mass of scars and burns from where the wiring of the metal appendage had formerly made it’s home.   
  
Loki felt something break in him; here was someone willing to sacrifice for nothing in return. Not power or status- just him. He knew what these scars meant to James, these were the remnants of his monster. How could he not reciprocate such openness?    
  
Barnes watches as the omega skin shimmered and faded from milk to cobalt, the cold radiating off him like a fog. James couldn’t say he found it enticing, but it wasn’t awful. He could still see the same face beneath intricate tribal lines, she same tin bowed lips that now appeared a dark plum hue rather that the usual soft peach.  It didn’t last long and the alpha could tell that once Loki returned to his normal appearance the omega felt insecure.   
  
He would need to remedy that.   
  
Closing the space between them, James kisses away the hesitancy from those still chilly lips. There was so much he wanted to say in this moment but it didn’t’ feel like it would be enough. So instead, the mortal moved his hand down his soon to be lover’s body unlacing the royal’s leathers.   
  
Shedding of clothes left and right until Loki was perched completely bare and once again in his lap. They were both far to emotionally wrought to go much further tonight but realized in the skin-to-skin contact and the languid motion of Barnes rough hand enclosed around both of there weeping lengths.   
  
“James…James…James…” Loki keened sweetly as he came.   
  
That’s when the words flooded from the alphas mouth they felt so natural, even though the spent omega laying on his chest was clearly half asleep with exhaustion. He said them anyway. “I love you Loki.”   
  
  
  



	25. Chapter 22: You made me want more.

Loki had never woken up next to someone before, at least not in such a romantic sense. He had never truly been one for entanglement beyond teasing and the occasional flirtation with the son or daughter of visiting dignitaries, just a little something to work Odin’s nerves. There of course had been times in his youth when Loki had slept under the stars with his brother and Thor’s little band of merry idiots… usually far enough away to avoid Volstaggs snoring and Thor’s incessant urge to latch onto whatever or whomever was closest in his sleep. (That had made for some usually amusing mornings when Sif would wake him to see Fandral and Thor cuddled up like drooling children.) Yet never had his day begun like this. Warm and plait, residing next to another and simply listening to them breathing.   
  
It was like living in your own little world that consist of the surface of one’s bed and the linens around you. A little world where everything was a bit kinder and brighter because you had your very own sun there beside you to give you warmth and light. As foolish and perhaps as ‘omegaish’ thing to feel, that was exactly what it was. A tiny universe where he was not the villain but a prized and beloved god, worshiping at the feet of another equally loved and venerated deity. After all, they had spent the night hours paying homage to one another.    
  
Even so, this blissful respite from the wakeful world had to come to an end sometime.   
  
Loki was initially brought out of sleep by the needy little mewls coming from his bedside, cracking open an eye to see Duchess’s ears just barely peeking over the edge of the bed between her paws. Poor little dear was used to Loki plucking her up from wherever she might drop and taking her to bed with him. Clearly waking up alone did not suite the little kits sensibilities. She let out a few more pitiable little cries while desperately seeking purchase against the bedding.  Loki knew she could easily bound to such a high, this was more so for show as if to say ‘mommy help’.   
  
“It‘s alright Darling,” he replied in a soft voice, reaching over to stroke silken ears. The kit responded mouthing and suckling at his fingers.  “Very well, little one you will have your breakfast soon.” 

Satisfied with the attention, the kit padded off to her cushion and curled up with only a few more little mews. Of course she was spoiled, they both knew it.  
  
The omega rolled over and looked at the sleeping mortal next to him, the shadow of stubble on the alphas chin, the part of his lips. Everything about this seemed too good, Loki didn‘t get good things. Worst of all, Loki knew what this feeling was in his chest. This pain and longing. A love that he did not deserve though he fiercely wanted, such a selfish creature he’d turned out to be.  
  
Leaning over the slumbering alpha, he placed a ghost of a kiss on the brunette’s temple. “Sleep well my love.”

* * *

Dressing quietly as he could, Loki picked up Duchess and slipped out of his chambers. There was no need to wake James, the alpha had expressed before he had trouble sleeping. Loki did not want to steal away a few precious hours from his love. So instead he made his way through the chambers, each step careful and light until reaching the door.   
  
Of course the guards outside looked away and snickered between themselves. No doubt, word of the Sergeants overnight stay had made it through the palace. How lovely it was to have no privacy.   
  
It wasn’t hard to suppose that this was now the talk of the old omegas as they clucked about Asgard’s false-prince. He hoped they choked on their tongues. What business was it of anyone who he took to bed.   
  
Loki rolled his eyes at the quiet gossip, he had more important matters this morning and listening to the mindless cackles of the court hens - certainly was not it.

* * *

“Sweetheart…you are looking well.” Frigga greeted her youngest as he approached with the little Furulve tailing behind him. The kit having grown fond of the Queen pounced happily ahead and dived at her lap.  “My my someone is happy to see me this morning!”   
  
Loki smiled softly and took a seat next to her, “Yes she has been rather lively this morning.” Watching Duchess roll over and bat gently at the older omegas hands. For a split second Loki wondered how this would look with his mother holding a little pup in her lap, one with downy hair the color of chestnuts and pale blue grey eyes. He banished the thought before it could take hold and twist his heart further.   
  
Hope was a dangerous thing.  
  
“I see, and she’s gotten milk all over her little face.” Frigga laughed taking up a corner of her sleeve to clean the little dribble on the kittens face. “Just like another little pup I recall so long ago.”   
  
“Come now mother, we both know Thor hasn’t out grown eating all over himself.” Loki smirked, any time was a good time to take a shot at his not-brother.  
  
“I was talking about you.” She grinned and cuddled the bundle of fur. “Though you did not have whiskers. Just an amazing talent for getting porridge in your hair, and often your father’s beard.” Chuckling at the memory.   
  
The younger omega blushed at the recollection, part of him wanted to correct her use of familial terms, but she seemed so happy. He couldn’t bear to ruin it for her at this moment.   
  
“What troubles you my dear one.”  
  
Loki blinked; he had not even said a word! How on earth could she know?   
  
“I can see it on your face son, you wear your emotions far more plainly than you may like to believe, or at least around me, now tell me what has you looking so low?” She said, reaching out to cup his cheek, her calming touch sinking into his skin.

He remembered so many moments like this, laying in his mother’s lap and breathing in her scent while he told her of his worries and his fears. At some point those moments grew fewer and farther between, not that his heart grew lighter of sorrow - more so that his mind grew darker with the thoughts and worries of weakness. All he ever wanted was to be seen as strong, and so to do that he locked himself away with his studies and soothed himself through knowledge. He always thought he had something more to prove as an omega.   
  
Loki reluctantly pulled away from that soothing touch. “My only weakness I am afraid is that my masks of decorum relay more on my siedr that I recall.”   
  
Frigga sighed and placed Duchess down on the floor to play before reaching for her son’s hands. “You should not have to hide these things, concealing the truth has been the crux of this family’s greatest failure. Perhaps if we had all been more honest all of this suffering could have been avoided.”   
  
“Speaking of the past will not make it more bearable.” he commented, not looking in her eyes lest his last modicum of strength fail and he fall into her arms. Loki could not do that now. He’d shown enough weakness to far too many people as of late.   
  
“No,” She paused stroking her thumbs over his prominent knuckles, “What it can do however, is make the future more bearable. I want better for you in the life that you still have ahead.”  
  
The queen felt the light tremor in her son’s hands and held on tighter. Loki had always been an emotional child, her sweet little boy who wore his feelings on his sleeves as a pup. She knew perhaps she had coddled him too much; her husband had often warned her to allow Loki to fight his own battles but she could not… now it was imperative that he learn that the answers he needed most were already with him.   
  
“What if I do not deserve better…Mother I …”  
  
“You love him…. Sergeant Barnes?” His cheeks colored and eyes wide as he looked up at her finally. She barely contained the smile at his surprise. “A mother knows dear.  He is a fine man and a wonderful match for you, I approve of him and as much as Odin may like to downgrade the mortals, I think he has seen Sergeant Barnes prove that he is an exception to the rule. Though, I admit…the old buzzard may not say so directly.”

Loki tried to fight it, already feeling the tears gathering in his eyes. “But…the things I did, even if I am forgiven here because of Thanos…on Midgard. On James’s home… how could they ever let us be? How will they let him be for his own pas? Why should they not assume I mean to control him as those before had?”  
  
She pulled him against her chest and held him there until his hesitant arms rested around her. “Your Sergeant has made more than his share of mistakes, that much is true, so have we all. The thing to remember is that you feel remorse for the pain you have both caused. Monsters do not know remorse and a Villain knows no recourse for his deeds. You may be flawed but you are not broken. They will understand with time when you show them that you have healed. That you both have…together. Show then that you are better than your past.”

* * *

Each day James had come a little farther in cutting away Hydra’s hold. As part of his agreement with SHIELD he began writing down everything he knew about hydras operations. Making his notes as detailed as possible about locations and agents, even if he wasn’t sure of their real names he could still remember code names and aliases. Sending these back to earth would hopefully act as proof that he no longer wanted to live the life of the winter soldier.   
  
Thor would gladly take the notebooks on his trips back to earth and return some days later with news. Shield had been making progress with the information Bucky provided them.   
  
He also hears about how things are going with Steve and Tony. It’s curious how he doesn’t feel jealous anymore he’s actually happy for Steve because he can remember little fragments and flashes about their life in Brooklyn and how much Steve wanted a family.   
  
These thoughts ultimately run through Barnes head and lead him to think about Loki and what they have built together over these passing months.   
  
James isn’t ready to let that go, even when Thor tells him that Shield maybe willing to have him return to earth under a probationary status. He can’t leave Loki, that much he knows in the depths of his heart.   
  
Asgard may not be home, but there is at least one part of it that is.   
  
“Damn..I’m in deep.” He says to himself, watching Loki from afar.   
  
There’s only one thing left to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, things are not great. Thinking about writing something centered about issues I'm struggling with as a way to cope idk.   
> In other news, i hope you enjoyed this chapter, sorry again for the wait but yeah life happens.. lol I'm sure you all understand. Any who hope you all have a lovely earth-day this weekend. I'm going to try and get out maybe pick up that new unicorn frap before its gone. I'll try and have another chapter up soonish if possible.


	26. Chapter 23: A little old fashioned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I know it’s been a while and I’m not even sure who all is still looking for this fic. I wish I didn’t have to give excuses and just post regularly but yeah… life is a bag of dicks sometimes and depression is a vile bitch with horrible timing. At any rate, here is a new chapter, I’m not sure it’s a great chapter but I did pour all the little remnants of my busted up lil heart in it. So I hope that shines through. Enjoy.

“I need to talk to your parents.”   
  
Thor lifts his gaze to a very determined looking James Barnes arriving to the warrior’s hall. “Requesting to meet with the King and Queen of Asgard is no small gesture my friend. Family or not my father has much to attend to, even if I am the one to request his council in your name, may I ask why you need to speak with them?”  
  
James stood with a straight back and unwavering eyes; he had faced down worse than this, so why in hell was his palm so sweaty! “It’s about Loki.”  
  
It had taken all of his fortitude to even walk down there and have this conversation, and James Barnes was no push over by the way! Still, he was about to ask Thor (a guy who had a freaking lighting zapping hammer!) to speak to his parents about his intentions toward Loki. This could go well or… it is a good thing Bucky made peace with himself this morning.   
  
The blond alpha before him sighed and looked down. It was somewhat impressive how Thor could go from ‘all powerful’ to ‘kicked puppy’ in a matter of moments. “What has he done?”  
  
“He hasn’t done anything!” Barnes didn’t mean to snap but the fact that Thor’s first thought was that his little brother had been behaving badly was a little irritating. It wasn’t that he didn’t get it. Loki’s track record wasn’t stellar by any means but even so, give the kid a chance. Was this really, how everyone approached Loki? This expectation of doom that hung around the omega like a dark cloud.   
  
Thor had been taken aback slightly by the other alphas sudden flair of aggression. Although, it was no secret that the Sergeant was courting Loki, Thor had honestly thought the two of them would be little more than a passing flirtation. While he always hoped more for Loki, the alpha knew not to get his hopes up. Loki had a habit of pushing people away as soon as they got too close, as for Barnes – while the mortal seemed honorable from what the Captain had shared with him, there was still the knowledge that not all was as it seemed.  Barnes was no longer the man that his shield brother Steven had once known, and perchance the trials of a life lived in battle and blood had changed the man. Surely, his patience for a willful omega like Loki would not last long.  Thor’s only hope was that when the mortal did tire of playing these games that the toll on his brother’s ego would not be irrepairable.   
  
“I see; I am glad he has not made any more trouble for himself. Am I to assume you wish to withdraw your courtship? I assure you Sergeant you need to make such formal request, though I do not know if that is customary on Midgard. I would hold no ill will toward you.”  
  
The brunette ground his teeth, “No that’s not… look I’m not dumping him ok, I want…” Barnes pause and gathered himself, he had to be respectful about this. Going off half-cocked now wasn’t going to win him any favor.  “I know it’s sudden, and I don’t know how you guys do things but I want to be with Loki, I want to bond with him.”  
  
You would have thought the Norns themselves had just entered the hall, by the stunned look on the thunderers face.   
  
“Bond. With Loki?  Loki…my brother?”   
  
“Gezz, is there another one? Yes, your brother!”  
  
The sudden explosion of movement should have been terrifying if it hadn’t been for the huge smile that broke across the blondes face. Thor was suddenly right in front of him and those massive arms clutched the mortal like an excited octopus. “THIS IS TRULY A GLORIOUS DAY!”   
  
“Thor! Th…Thor! You-you’re crushing me!” Barnes groaned as the air was forced from his lungs.   
  
Dropping the flailing mortal, the other smiled, “forgive me Sar…ah no, Forgive me brother! I shall have words with my mother at once, she will be most pleased. I assume you have spoken to Loki of your intentions yes?”  
  
James floundered after the intense hug fest, “Yeah, well not exactly. I was going to make sure everything was copacetic before I brought it up to him. I want to be able to let him know it’s all alright, kid seems to think nothin’s ever gonna work out so I wanted to be sure before I asked ya know?”  
  
“Yes, that is wise of you brother.” Thor nodded crossing his arms in thought. “I should not think this would be a problem. If anything, Loki is the right age, perhaps a bit old for an unbound omega. I am sure our father would be pleased to know Loki will have an alpha willing to care for him.”  
  
It wasn’t as if Loki needed ‘caring for’ in the traditional sense, at least not in James’ mind. However, he understood the sentiment. He just couldn’t leave Loki here, couldn’t stand the idea of Loki spending even more of his life alone without even a shred of happiness. Maybe he wanted some of that happiness too, because for the first time in …well since he could remember – James was happy.   
  
“I want you to know I indent to do right by him.”  
  
Thor clapped a large hand on the mortals shoulder, “I believe you.”

* * *

  
Meeting the parents is never easy, that being said, meeting royalty of the almost-immortal-alien-god verity ….well that was downright nerve wracking.   
  
Still, James was up to the challenge. The alpha had scrubbed himself head to foot and put on the nicest looking tunic he had at his disposal. Taking care to shine up his shoulder guard and tie his hair back. He considered shaving but then again It seemed like most Asgardian men were sporting the St. Nick jr league of facial hair, so he was probably safe.  Barnes just wanted to make the best impression possible. That’s how they used to do things, or that’s how he thought they did things back in the day. At any rate, the action seemed to comfort his nerves and felt like a step in the right direction.   
  
Considering the subject matter, things could either way; if they gave their blessing then he’d just have a proposal to think about. If they said no…well Barnes would like to say the images of making off in the night with Loki didn’t seem to stir old feelings. He wished he were a stronger sort of man to say he’d respect the wishes of the omegas family. He wasn’t.   
  
In his heart of hearts, James knew what it was like to be on the run and if he had to live that life again with Loki by his side, it didn’t seem that bad. Still, not having to resort to such dramatics would be nice too. Not to mention the fact that he wanted to give his omega the kind of life he deserved. The kind of life where there was a home and hearth and all those wonderful stable things that James hasn’t felt since before the war. What fraction of nostalgia he could still feel told him that was a life he wanted to reach for - if he could have it…if he deserved to even want it was another matter.   
  
That wasn’t going to stop him from trying to show Loki what real family was. What belonging felt like. Because James did have a shadow of that lingering in the back of his mind.   
  
Hazy images of a small kitchen and old rickety wood table, his name carved into the corner, his mother had tanned his hide when she saw. Creaking beds and the hum of the floor furnace. His sister’s voice. His mothers smile. Things that helped chased that encroaching darkness away. Now there were more images to join them. Green eyes and raven hair, long slender limbs and a sly fox like smile. Skin so soft and smooth he felt unworthy to allow his fingertips to grace its porcelain surface. Then there was the fire in those emerald eyes that burned for so many reasons, so much life and power just below all of that elegance.     
  
“You can do this.” the alpha said to his reflection one last time. “You faced Nazi’s for Christ sake.”

* * *

  
  
Frigga wasn’t hard to convince, her face absolutely lit up.  It wasn’t hard to see where Thor got his exuberance. “ Oh James, this is truly wonderful. My heart has never known such joy as this. It has always been my wish for my son to have a kind and loving Alpha in his life. For you to come to us like this, even not being of Asgard, speaks volumes of your honor.”   
  
Odin…well the old man just sort of grimaced and glared. That raisin countenance that only grumpy old men tend to have. He wasn’t giving anything away aside from a grunt here and a dismissive gesture there. If he hated Barnes or liked him there was no telling.   
  
Finally, the King stood from this throne and descended the stairs silently, passing the mortal with a side-glance akin to inspecting an insect. “A word Sergeant?”   
  
Barnes nodded and followed, the queen eyeing the two as they exited the grand hall to a near by balcony. She hadn’t seemed overly concerned so James thought he wasn’t about to be chucked over the side or killed in some other fashion.   
  
“I am sure Loki has told you a great many things about his upbringing.” Odin began. “However skewed his thoughts toward Frigga and I have become.”  
  
“He loves her, as far as his past I don’t push.“ James interrupted.   “He tells me what he wants to, and what he needs to.”   
  
Odin looked him up and down, a veil of surprise in the old gods blue eye. “Despite what he may think, Loki is and ever will be my son Sergeant Barnes.”  
  
James couldn’t help the scoff that left his lips, “Sorry, It’s not like I know a whole hell of a lot about fathers and sons. What I remember about my own family is sketchy at best, but I know people don’t just feel the kind of pain he feels with out some kinda reason.”  
  
“You humans, so fond of placing blame.”   
  
“I call it like I see it.”  
  
There was a tense silence between them and Barnes knew the old Alpha was reigning in it for the sake of the woman seated just inside the hall.  “Being a father is not so easy, yet I brought that child into my home and I cared for him. I care still, I see what has become of him and my own part in that. There is nothing that can be said to undo what has been done and it is my hope that Loki will one day understand.  That said, I would not  stand to see him suffer needlessly any longer. You are mortal Sergeant, enhanced by your kind’s primitive science or not. Your life is a blink of an eye.”   
  
It wasn’t as if this was news, James knew the score when he came here. Serum and Hydra training could old do so much and hell - he’d spent most of his life in cryo. There was no telling how long he might live outside of it, weather he’d go back to aging normally or slowly. He toyed with the idea of joining up with Shield  to try to lesson the skeletons still in his closet.  That just added more weight of  mortality.  Going out on missions meant maybe not coming back.    
Regardless, James knew he’d go first. Maybe it was selfish of him but he rather preferred it that way. Even now, the thought of losing the sly omega did something to what was left of his heart.   
  
“Yeah, but  the thing is… I’ll give him all the years I have left. If that’s 100, 1000, or 10. I’ll give my best for the time I have with him.”  
  
“What of after you have gone, what of Loki then?” Odin questioned, suddenly looking every bit of the millennia’s he had lived. “Do you think this love enough to sustain him in the wake of your inevitable end?”  
  
That was heavy, he’d sound arrogant if he said yes. The truth was James didn’t think that highly of himself.  
  
 “I think he doesn’t need my love to keep living. I think he’s strong enough without me and he’ll still be strong when I’m six feet under. A man can live with out love ya know, muddle through it all. Wanting it though, and having it is what makes all the shit bearable. I’m not saying it’s always going to be sunshine and roses but it it’ll be worth it. “ James looked out on the gardens and beautiful skies above. A part of him whispers that this is what he always thought heaven would be like. Now he knows the truth about that. Heaven or hell, it’s the life you have while you get to have that is the true paradise. A paradise you build with your own two hands. Moreover, he wanted to build it with Loki.    “When I’m gone he’ll still have that and he’ll know I want him to be happy, he’ll know because I’ll tell him every damn day that he deserves that much.”  
  
The old man hummed  and gazed out at the horizon as well. “ You have my blessing Sergeant.”


	27. Chapter 24: Never letting go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> typing with acrylic stiletto nails is hard y'all.... 
> 
> That being said here is your new chapter - pecked out with loved at an awkward hand position lol. Enjoy

Time seemed to stretch on forever as James sat outside the infirmary, even though there was nothing further Eir could do for him, Loki was still required to see the healer from time to time.  For solidarity sake, the mortal took to attending the visits as well.   
  
As for the reason for the visits?  There had been other issues since the Omegas ‘house arrest’ had begun preceding the failed takeover in New York. Coupled with the revealed torture at the hands of Thanos and Loki‘s altered sentence.  While the former prince was released from the dungeons of Asgard, Loki no longer had his siedr to rely on and his body trying to readjust to a natural rhythm - he had not been fairing as well as he liked others to think. Having never been one who enjoyed showing his emotions too freely, the influx in his mental state proved challenging day to day. The omega could not quite grip his lack of control over his own body and mind. Even with Eir and the other healers help to lesson the damage done by Thanos and The Other, without his own abilities Loki was left with old ghosts to contend with. Moreover, having to face who he truly was and the uncertain future that lay ahead of him.   
  
Barnes hated watching Loki struggle. The way the ravenette would sulk for hours or lay in bed refusing to speak at all. James simply sat quietly or spoke of anything he could think of, sometimes reading portions of the reports he was mandated to write for SHIELD. Loki would often perk up here and there with a comment on how ‘predictable and dull’ Hydra seemed on paper.    
  
Sometimes he would even open up, in the late evening he would lay between the alphas splayed legs, reclining against the mortals chest. “I never wanted it, any of it…the Throne. The power. The hate. Not really. I just wanted to not feel anything. I tried to fail you know, even with the Titians grip so strong. I went to Midgard knowing I would fail. ” he would say.   
  
James would wrap his arm around the slender frame in front of him and press a kiss of Loki’s neck. “I know doll. It won’t ever happen again, I won’t let it.”   
  
And for a moment Loki would believe him, those bowstring shoulders would relax and that controlled grace would slip. James loved those moments when the omega became like silk against him, soft and plait. Laying him down in the grass or across the bed and just loving every inch of skin his lips could touch. Those were better days.  
  
On days like this one, Barnes would take his seat like a faithful sentry, Duchess playing about the former soldier’s feet and sporadically vying for his attention. Picking up the kit by the scruff and placing her in his lap was the only way to insure the tiny hellion didn’t annoy any who may pass by. They didn’t need the little one trying out her deadly tail quills on a servant or guard.   
  
“So, what do’ya think huh?” he questions the little bundle of fluff now lying on her back.   
  
Duchess tilts her head and blinks those big luminous eyes. Barnes thinks she is far more intelligent than she should be, maybe some of Loki’s own personality leeching to the kit. Nature vs. Nurture and what not. Not that he knows anything about the subject. However, those glittering eyes that seem to glow in the dim golden lights seem to register his every word.   
  
“Down on one knee with a ring or do I have to go kill a damn dragon. I’m sure they have them here, hmm…I’d probably come home with an egg though.”  
  
The kit whines and pushes her front paws up into the air.    
  
“Yeah, you don’t want a little brother or sisters do you? You want all the attention huh princess?” The answering purr is really all he needs to know.   
  
Then again, he’s sort of known that grand gestures are more an Aesir trait than his. Loki may seem the grandiose diva but at the end of the day, James really knows what’s beneath all of that. A man who is absorbed by books and quiet evenings, a solid balance to the sparks of chaos.    
  
“I don’t even have a ring,” he says. Duchess rolls and wriggles placing a paw on his chest. Looking at him so intensely he really does think she understands. On the other hand, maybe she’s just tired of his talking and not bowing to her need of belly rubs and ear scratches. “Maybe something else, he doesn’t seem much like the ring type and it’s not like I currently have a left hand.” 

* * *

  
“You are staring James, if you have a comment share it now.” Loki was annoyed enough after having to be carried back to his chambers like a helpless child. The awful draught that Eir had given him had some dizzying side effects. Still, he supposed it was better than the lingering darkness that seemed to plague him when alone. That dark passenger whispering in his ear, using his own voice to convince the fallen prince to end it all. Yes, a bit of dizziness   was far better.   
  
“Can’t a fella just look?” Barnes approached his bedside, the furs dipping under the mortal’s weight as he sat. “Had me worried you know. Ya should’ a told me you haven’t been feeling well.”   
  
“And what would you have done?” Loki wanted to pull away from the comforting hand gently slipping hair behind his ear. It felt too good; he damned him self just a little for leaning in and capturing the hand against his cheek. Allowing the normal condescension to slip from his tone and replace it with a softer resolute sound. “Escalating your worry would have served no purpose. After all, you have your own troubles James. Who am I to add to them?”  
  
‘Who am I?’  James considered the phrase. ‘Who am I?’ There was so much he wanted to say to that, because wasn’t that the title of Loki’s problems? Barnes wanted to be the one to answer that question and end that eternal struggle within the mage. Loki had a place with him.  
  
“You’re mine. If you want to be.”   
  
True it wasn’t the most elegant of proposals, and at first, Loki wasn’t even sure it was one. He laughed it off saying “You would not want…”  
  
“No.” Barnes interrupted “I do. Loki, I want you to listen to me.”   
  
He looked up to the alpha and saw warmth and certainty, he saw promise and love, all the things Loki never thought would be directed toward him. All the things he soaked up greedily each day this man was around him. Even so, did Barnes truly know what he was saying? What he was tying himself to with such a declaration? Their coy courting had been wonderful but this had much more permanent connotations. They were from different worlds, different species, how could they possibly have a life together?  
  
“Look,” James lifted his hand and clasped one of the paler slender ones before him.  “I can’t say I know how this will all work out, and I can’t promise it’s going to be easy. What I can do is tell ya I love you. You have given me back a part of myself I thought was dead. I could not leave now even if I wanted to, I don’t want to. You and me….we can make this work together. I really believe that and I hope you do, marry me Loki.”   
  
“James, I…”  
  
The words stopped as they were caught in a kiss, it wasn’t soft and cloying as many had been or forceful and hot like others. This one was needy and desperate.   
  
“Don’t tell me what I shouldn’t do doll. Don’t you do that.” James breathed the words against his lips.   
  
“Foolish mortal…” Loki smiled tilting his head back for more. Taking another desperate kiss until his lungs burned. “Yes. Yes I will marry you.”

* * *

  
Loki almost felt cheated that he was far to exhausted to do anything more with his alpha post  proposal. James of course was more than understanding and left the omega to rest while he went about his own tasks of the day.  Later that evening the pair  would meet again, choosing to take their evening meal alone - receiving a knowing smirk from the Queen as they left the dining hall.   
  
“I do not want an Aesir binding ceremony, and I know that’s what mother with wish for us.” Loki commented poking idly at a few greens on his plate. “I am not Aesir and neither are you, it is pointless really.”  
  
Barnes hummed and sipped his wine, “Well what about what you said you are. Uh,Jotnar? What do they do?”  
  
It was clear by the disgust on Loki’s face that was in no way an option. “Hel if I know, the beasts probably dance naked and drink the blood of infants.”  
  
“Somehow I doubt that..” Barnes mumbled but made no further suggestion to anything involving the customs of the frozen realm. “We could just have one like back on earth. I don’t expect you to wear a dress of course…well not in public anyway.” He winked    
  
Loki flicked a small bit of bread at the mortal for the garment suggestion but did not entirely hate the idea. “What do humans do?”  
  
“Ya go to a church and the priest says some things, I can’t remember exactly. You exchange rings and kiss then that’s it. If ya couldn’t afford a big shindig then you when to the court house and signed some papers.” Barnes shrugged. He recalled flashes of the asset watching a wedding at a fine cathedral before….well, he rather not concentrate on what happened next.   
  
“So it is a smaller affair?”   
  
James nodded and fed duchess a few scraps under the table. “It can be. You invite who you want to be there.”  
  
“I prefer that I think. I have no interest in being paraded in front of court and a weeklong feast. It’s awful and tedious to be surrounded by those who could not care less for your happiness. Especially in my case.”   
  
Gathering up their empty, (or in Loki’s case- picked over) plates, James just nodded, “Whatever you want to do. The ceremonies are just the formal bit. What counts will be between us anyway.” After clearing away the mess, he moved behind the omega and shifted away Loki’s hair to get better access to the pale neck hidden behind the noir waves. The alpha leaned in and felt the slight shiver as his rough chin grazed pallid flesh. “Gonna mark you right here, nice and proper so everyone can see you’re spoken for.”   
  
“If you keep this up we may not make it to the ceremony..” 

* * *

  
  
Frigga was not as disappointed as Loki thought she would be, if anything she was overjoyed to be asked to officiate the small affair. The word of a queen had to be as good as a priest or judge, at least that’s what Barnes thought.   
  
 As far as the issue of ‘rings’ James had another idea, he would just need a little help from back home and a little help from his soon-to-be Brother-in-law.   
  


* * *

  
Phil Coulson was surprised to have the god of thunder walk into his office and even more so of what he had to say.   
  
“Son of Coul, I have a matter of great import that I require your assistance with.  I am told by my Lady Jane that you are a keeper of precious heirlooms concerning the Captain and his former shield brothers.”  
  
The omega smirked and folded his hands at the question, “She told you I collect memorabilia huh?”   
  
Thor looked very proud of himself, “Indeed, and what I seek maybe among your vaults.”   
  
“Don’t really have a vault; it’s moreover a curio but semantics. Can I ask exactly what you need and why?” It wasn’t every day that an Asgaurdian prince wanted to see your collectables and paint Phil intrigued but he had to know why before parting with any of his vintage swag.   
  
Hesitating the thunderer turned and closed the door neatly behind him, a soft gesture considering the man’s size. The defiantly got the agents attention. “The matter is a sensitive one. What I tell you must not leave this room.”    
  
“Thor, as much as I’m not a chatty Kathy. If this is in anyway effects national or interplanetary security you know I will have to tell the director.” Not that Phil honestly thought any of his original packaging action figures or posters would somehow stave off an alien invasion - but you never know.   
  
“Sergeant Barnes has tasked me in the retrieval of a piece of property from his days as a warrior at the Captains side. As for the reasoning it is nothing so sinister Son of Coul, in fact it is for a joyous occasion. Barnes will soon be a member of the royal family.” Thor grinned proudly.   
  
Member of the royal family?  That had many connotations that Phil was almost sure was an interplanetary incident just waiting to happen, at least if your name was Nick Fury. All of that sounded awkward. “Thor, perhaps you can explain to me what you mean by that.”  
  
The blond adjusted his cape and took a seat on one of the adjacent leather couches; the alphas size and dress seemed comical on the streamline modern furnishings. “As I said, this is to not leave these quarters. The Sergeant wishes to be the one to disclose this to the Captain and the others.”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“James has chosen to take Loki as his omega. The All-father and All-mother are in agreement as am I.”  
  
Right, ok so this was like one of those black and white villain movies where the girl gets tied up and but in front of an oncoming train. At least that’s what the agent’s brain supplied for some reason. “Loki and Barnes? “  somehow, he could just see Loki with one of those curly mustaches twirling it laughing manically.    
  
“Indeed, tis a good match.” Thor just kept smiling.   
  
 Can‘t blame a guy for feeling a little leery after being stabbed through the chest. “The Winter Soldier and God of Mischief?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Coulson sat back and eyes the red button under his desk; Thor didn’t look mind controlled though so it might be a little premature to signal a team. He looked so happy about this, like a puppy who just received a biscuit for completing a trick; Phil really didn’t want to be the one to spoil it for him. “ Thor,” he had to be delicate about this,  “I’m sure that you’re family is very pleased, However, I’m sure you can appreciate that this may make some of us here on Earth a bit nervous considering both your brother and Sergeant Barnes - past actions. The potential for future threat that their relationship may produce.”  
  
Considering the humans words, Thor leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. There was a pause of contemplation before the alpha looked up with complete certainty and faith in his eyes. “I understand, and you are not wrong to fear such upon hearing of this. In truth, I too had difficulty seeing Loki as anything other than what rage had made him. Yet I know I was once an arrogant and foolish child and I had not seen the great tortures that my brother had. Having shared many conversations with James, I know he too has known a life war and recalls the faces of all those who were fled at his hands. They have both committed sins and have in many ways atoned for them. Though their hands are in no way clean, I believe there are few among us who can claim as such. I have also learned the words of Midgard holy men concerning this, *‘love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals.’* “  
  
“Martin Luther King.” Coulson nodded and said, contemplating the words, “Can’t argue with that can I? I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a fan of your brother, but I have seen his file and Barnes’. If you truly think that they both have changed for the better, I will do my best to help you.” 

* * *

  
  
The chosen day arrived and the pair stood beneath the willow in the royal gardens. The tree had become a kind of safety net for the two of them over the passing months. It seemed only natural for this to be the place where they pledged their lives to one another.   
  
Moments before the ceremony Thor had handed off a small box to James, “ I was told by the Agent Coulson of SHIELD that these were in the possession of one you had once known. He was able to convince her into parting with them.”   
  
Barnes frowned, ‘her’ did that mean his sister was alive? Certainly not she would be in her late 90’s by now but then who else? “What was her name, the uh.. woman who had them ?”   
  
“Margaret Carter”   
  
The alpha felt his lungs catch for a moment, “Peggy…wow.”  He wondered if Steve knew but then…he  had a lot of other things on his mind right now. Popping open the box he looked inside, tracing his fingers over the familiar metal. It was a lifetime ago and yet they shoe just as brightly as they had back in 41. He just hope Loki would like the gesture. 

* * *

  
It was a beautiful day, the kind of day that you can always look back on in the worst of moments and remember. Remember the warmth of the sun and gentle breeze, the way the fragrance of the flowers filled every breath- most of all .. Remembering the look in each other’s eyes, the weight of their hand in yours. Yes, it was that kind of day.  
  
The guest list was a short one, Thor (who insisted), Eir, and Loki’s former servant Sigyn. Thor had offered to fetch anyone of Barnes choosing from Midgard; however, the alpha didn’t think Stark would appreciate his pregnant omega traveling through space. Bifrost travel wasn’t exactly a walk in the park and as much as Bucky would have liked having Steve there - he wouldn’t risk that. Not to mention starting their first conversation since he left with, _‘hey yeah…so I’m getting bonded would you come? Oh and by the by, it’s Loki. You know: black hair, gams for days, tried to take over the world. That Loki.’_ Somehow that seemed like something one would want to ease into.

Even if there wasn’t anyone there on Barnes behalf, it didn’t matter much to him as long as he ended this day with his omega beside him.  
  
  
"In the presence of Yggdrasil, Do you Loki Friggason take James Barnes to be your mate, promising with Divine assistance of the Norns to be unto your Alpha a loving and faithful omega so long as you both shall live?" Frigga spoke, standing before the pair as they stood under the shade of the old willow.   
  
Loki did not miss her use of the non-tradition surname on his behalf. No matter is quarrel with Odin; she would always be his mother. That thought felt never truer than now as she gave him to another.   
  
The ravenette smiled, taking a gold chain from his neck, on it hung a gold pendant with his signate run carved into its surface. It had been a gift long ago from his mother. He still remember that day, the two little princes each received a signate form their parents.   
  
It was to honor their leave of childhood and first day to be allowed without a minder. Thor had received his long before - a silver ring from his father.  Even so, the elder boy stood beside his young brother as their mother draped the delicate chain around Loki’s neck.    
  
As he looked back, he thought only of the pride he felt at being independent. Now, he was giving over a portion of that independence. Entrusting his alpha to care for him and his best interest. Agreeing to not only trust; but obey when necessary. “I do.”  
  
Frigga continued, "In the presence of Yggdrasil, Do you James Barnes take Loki Friggason to be your mate, promising with Divine assistance of the Norns to be unto your omega a loving and faithful Alpha so long as you both shall live."  
  
James pulled the token from his pocket, silver steel glinting just as brightly as the day it was presented to him in the army.   
  
His dog tags.   
  
Some might think them a remnant of his old self; Barnes saw it as something entirely different. These represented the first time he chose to step away from his family to do something greater, to chase a dream and build a life. They represented a part of his past that he was proud of. Even if the memories were fuzzy and tattered around the edges. He knew what they meant. The man he had been - a kid at most. Willing to lay down his life for what was right. Watching Loki put on those tags was James’ way of saying - ‘I will protect you, I will die for you, I love you.’    
  
“I do.”   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is just going to be smut ...so yeah ..heads up i guess lol


	28. Chapter 25: I’ve got you

It is widely believed, by not only Aesir, but also humans and many other races, that it is best to bond within a heat. This solidifies the bond at the height of biological vulnerability. The flood of hormones across the bond meant to reinforce each party’s dependency on the other for safety and security. This is a concept born out of the primal beginnings of life, thus, a throw back to days gone by somehow became gospel. That’s not to say it’s impossible to bond outside of a heat or in a couple where a heat is not present due to presentation status. Still, for an Alpha and Omega pair it is considered ideal; unfortunately, not all have that luxury. Be at simple as poor timing, injury, or other unforeseen difficulty.  
  
 Not that James or Loki would let this mild inconvenience stop them. It wasn’t as if they had been conventional up to now anyway. There were however, a few traditions that Loki was not willing to let fall by the wayside, call it sentiment or a far away childhood daydream - but there was one tradition the trickster intended to keep.   
  
One he grew up hearing older omegas and their handmaids speak of, in secrete, he had thought of it fondly concerning the day of his bonding. Even when he thought that day would never actually come.

* * *

  
  
Following the ceremony, Bucky thought the two of them would be heading off to be alone and less than clothed, color the alpha disappointed when his new brother-in-law came bounding over, dragging him away. The world just didn't seem fair at that moment.   
  
Loki just smirked and waved at his new alpha, heading off with Sigyn.  
  
As if this wasn’t the oddest thing in the world for newly weds to part ways just after saying ‘I do’. James was under the impression that you were suppose to throw rice and then head off somewhere and get at it like rabbits with your friends and family blissfully pretended they didn’t know you were doing just that.   
  
To say he was feeling a little bit jipped – was putting it mildly.  
  
“Hold up what’s this?” The brunette question as he was bodily drug off by the larger blond. Was he asking too much? Was this necessary? How is guy supposed to mark up his omega if they won’t leave him alone! A tragedy is what that is!  
  
Thor glanced over his shoulder, “Oh Loki is going to prepare himself for your bonding night of course! Tis what all omega do, it is their final night of purity and must leave their former selves behind. I am surprised Loki would honor such tradition, but pleased none-the-less. I never thought I would ever have my brother back, and now I have two!”  He said clapping Barnes on the back “As for you, this is a joyous occasion brother! We shall take you to the Tavern and cheer your joining to the house of Odin!”

“Yeah…of course that’s a thing…” James couldn’t have said no if he wanted to.  All the alpha could hope for was that he wouldn’t be pickled in alien Gin and end up passed out somewhere rather than enjoying his marital bed later. 

* * *

  
  
This was one of the few Aesir traditions Loki had allowed. The rest had been far too flashy and required much more patience then he would ever be willing to give. However, this was much more… intimate.   
  
He vaguely recalled a cousin of his mother, the day the lovely omega was married he and several other young family omega were asked to be in her ceremonial party. Frigga had thought it would be good for him to know what a proper omega should expect. At first, Loki had been so against the idea, sill detesting his presentation, but then something changed.   
  
_In typical Aesir, fashion there had been feasting leading up to the ceremony, then after it was over the couple parted. The alpha went to his brethren to toast his conquest and the Omega left with her party to prepare. Servants bustled about moving all of the omegas belonging to be sent to her alpha‘s home for them. Clothing from her youthful days was bundled and tucked away to be given to her younger omega siblings.  She was stripped and lead to a specially prepared bath, it was symbolic more than anything was. Washing away ones old life, becoming a clean slate to be written upon with the love of their alpha._   
  
As Loki stood in his bathing chambers the scents of the ancient oils and herbs rose from the water, steam caressing his skin with decadence. He recalled how beautiful the older omega was, she was like a goddess of fate glowing with pride.  He wanted to feel that pride just once, that confidence that did not depend on ones prowess. It simply – was. For all of his blustering and preening Loki never had been very confident as a young man and this unease followed him into adulthood. There were days in recent past when he thought of that inherent lack and wondered if he felt that way because of a subconscious recognition of his obvious difference.  
  
Even so, James did not look at him and see 'difference', that was what made him special. When the alpha looked at him with those bright eyes like the clearest pools in all the realms, there was only warmth there. Barnes gave him the feeling that Loki had been chasing from the very start.    
  
“Are you ready Master?” Sigyn asked. Looking to the ravenette seated at the vanity.  
  
He still wore the old dressing gown from his youth. It would be bundled and tucked away shortly along with the rest of things from before his fall. Loki could say goodbye to that past now and that was the true beauty in all of this. There was a time that he clung to the past, both good and bad, used it as a crutch or a sword that he had to fall on over and over again. He didn’t need to do that now, for once- letting go was a good thing.  
  
“Yes Thank you Sigyn, you know… I‘m not…”  
  
“No.” She interrupted, gently untying the band of his robe. “You will always be My Prince; you can allow me that much I think?” 

He smiled, “Of course.”  Touching her hands in silent thanks, he could always count on her. Despite all the sadness and deception of his days in Asgard, no mater how tarnished his name had become…she stayed. He thinks briefly, watching her gently fold the robe, her rose gold hair in a loose braid - had he been an Alpha… he would have asked for her hand. Servant or not, in another life he could see her in such away. Perhaps if James had never come to Asgard, perhaps even as he was…as the creature he truly is…she would have still had him.

There was no time to look back now or let his mind terry on silly what-have and what-ifs.   
  
She nodded and excused herself, leaving him to his own devices. Normally there would have been a group of family omega or friends to tend him. There was a momentarily pang of sadness at that.   
  
He wasn't like his brother, never knew the adoration or companionship of a pack.   
  
Loki slipped into the bath alone, there would be no servants and family to wash and pamper the newly united omega. There was no one else he could trust aside from his former handmaid. Therefore, he took the task upon himself as Sigyn prepared the bedchamber for his alphas return and tidied things away. She had insisted he ask some of the other servants she knew personally but Loki declined. He had always been the private type and saw no need to change that now. Why ask people who could just barely tolerate you to be involved in a day so important?   
  
The water was warm, perhaps a bit too warm for his tastes but in a way, it was good to feel the light sting over his sensitive skin. It felt cleansing, as if he was drowning away any and all who dare lay their hands here before. He could close his eyes and let go of that shame because James never associated him with shame or disgust.    
  
Not that Loki had told James of everything that befell him while in the void; he knew that his soldier would not have judged him harshly. The alpha would protect him if he allowed it, and right now Loki wanted to allow it. To shed every black mark from his soul and hand over something clean and worthy of love. Maybe one day he would tell James everything, one day when he no longer felt the crawl of unseen touched over his flesh at the mere mention of it. One day when he could hold his head up and truly believe that, it wasn't his own weakness left to blame. Maybe. One day.   
  
Loki eased farther into the water, laying back and briefly letting his body drift below the surface. Closing his eyes and allowing himself to feel the weightless cradle of heat as he drifted. Soon enough the need to breath brought his face to the surface. He tried not to dwell on the mild trimmer in his hands from the lack of oxygen, the feeling had old memories attached to it that he not dares touch right now.   
  
Instead, he concentrated on the task at hand and tried his best to clear his thoughts. Reaching for the bath oils in their delicate decanters.  
  
Each one of these oils and tonics provided were all well known in the realms to cleanse and heal. This was why he agreed to this, because he wanted to feel new. To stand before the one person who knew what it was like to truly hate what the past has made you. Look into eyes that likewise understood such suffering, and come into that embrace - clean.    
  
“Only you…” He said quietly, laying back in the water and allowing his limbs to go limp around him. “I’ll have only you on my skin.” 

* * *

After the bath, Loki was dressed in a white robe and led to his bedchambers. The room looked so different that it caused him to pause momentarily and wonder if this was indeed still his chambers.   
  
Sigyn had cleared away any clutter and changed the bed linens and furs, even the canopy fabrics had been changed for there usual dark emerald to a sheer creamy tone. The whole room seemed lighter- new.   
  
“I’ve sent a guard to the tavern to let your Alpha know you are ready to receive him.” she stated, moving to take the basket of his shed garments from the ceremony.   
  
They too would be cleaned and packed away. He suspected that the tailor would come in the morning. Normally an omega would begin dressing in there alphas house colors, at least for the first few months of bonding. Since Barnes was not of Asgard Loki wasn't sure what tones his alpha would prefer for him.   
  
 Is there anything else I can do for you Master?”   
  
 He looked up from his thoughts,” No Sigyn thank you, although, will you see to it that Duchess stays in the company of my mother for the next few days?” It would be best not to have the kit underfoot during his 'honeymoon period'.   
  
The girl shivered thinking of the little hellion and thanking the Norns he had not asked her to keep it. “Yes of course Sir.” 

* * *

  
James had been a little thrown off by the guard’s weird announcement; thank whatever god was listing that he was not drunk yet.  By the hoots and hollers of the alphas around him, he could judge that this was a good thing. He’d finally get to head back and see Loki. Moreover, do other things too.  
  
Thor of course was quiet and awkward, poor guy. James felt like he should say something, but what do you say?  ‘So…I’m’ a go have sex with your brother now. Don’t worry I’ll be gentle.’   
  
Yeah, no. He wasn’t going to be doing that.   
  
“Good luck sergeant!”  Fandral grinned and smacked him on the back.  “If you should fall in battle we shall remember you fondly!” The blond joked, receiving a jab in the side from Sif.   
  
“Right, well…see ya.” That seemed safe enough. 

Barnes followed the guard back as far as the entrance to Loki’s hall. It looked like the usual guards had backed off a lot from their usual posts just outside the door. How nice, or maybe it was for the sake of decorum, James didn’t think the fancy space Vikings were up to voyeurism. One never could tell though, considering Thor told him they had a guy who basically watched the world.   
  
Oddly, the guard saluted him and closed the usually open doors to the hall. They had never done that before, he tried not to thing on it to much. There was only one thing that really mattered right now and that was waiting for him at the end of the hall.   
  
After a brief moment of complete darkness, lights began to glow along the walls leading the way to Loki’s main bedchamber.  The room he had spent so much time as of late, and yet now - seemed different.   
  
It’s funny how a little change can make something appear so new. Then again, this wasn’t just a little change - in the grand scheme of things. James stood at the door and realized what lay on the other side, it wasn’t just Loki, and it was his Mate. His Omega, his partner, the other half his soul. Tonight would change everything and he and Loki would have to change with it. It was a terrifying prospect but at the same time thrilling.   
  
He was ready for that. No, more than ready for it- he felt whole for the first time in a long time. Missing an arm or not, he felt like he could take on the world, and old glimmer of the man he used to be trilled through his veins.   
  
The room was dark, save for a single candle flickering by the bed. Enough to backlight the tall, slender silhouette seated there on the edge of the bed.   
  
“Welcome home, alpha.” The voice lacked its usual teasing edge when using the endearment. Now it was laced with something more akin to longing and need.   
  
James knew how close he was to being able to feel that need. Once they were bonded, he hoped the connection would be as strong as some he had heard of. Those rare deep bonds that the other partner can feel and sense so much through. He wanted to feel that with Loki, to share in the joy and pain in equal parts. To know when his omega needed him most and be able to reach across that bond and ask for comfort when he didn't have the strength to ask for it.   
  
The sound of the omegas words triggered a low growl in the back of his throat. Each step bringing him closer. Barnes let his eyes drink in the offering before them, his omega seated demur in white, hair in long loose waves. Untamed and untouched. Everything wild that was the trickster and yet - contained just for him. 

“Loki…” he said reaching out and tilting the omegas face up, letting the warm fire light dance over the angles and planes of Loki’s features. “Take it off doll. I wanna see all of you.” 

* * *

  
“Always the charmer my alpha.” the ravenette purred, tugging at the belt of the silken robe. The shining pale fabric opened slow and whispered against his luminous skin. The gentle caress sent a shiver along the omega's spine. He wondered mildly if that shiver would soon come from his new mate. Would the alpha be wild and ravenous? On the other hand, would James treat him like glass and handle him with care? Perhaps somewhere in between- that sounded pleasant the more Loki considered the night ahead.   
  
Barnes watched intently as inch by blessed inch of pure pale flesh was exposed to the glowing candle light. Despite having just returned from the tavern, his throat and mouth suddenly felt like sandpaper. The alpha's heart fluttered against his ribs and his hand trembled with the need to touch.   
  
Touch he did.   
  
James wanted to map every inch of flesh, to render it in his broken mind like a shrine to a sinfully beautiful creature that had captured his heart effortlessly.   
  
“Lay back sweetheart.” the command was soft yet heavy.   
  
Loki didn't hesitate, that in it self was surprising. So plait and eager before this mortal. If you told him this years ago, he would have had you flogged for blasphemy. Yet now, now, this was worship in its purest form. Feeling a rough warm hand trace the line of his neck, down his breastbone to count each rib. The omega closed his eyes and breathed deeply when lips soon joined the quest on his flesh.  
  
They took it slow, stripping each other piece by piece, soft touches and tender lips caressing every new peek of skin. Loki found himself looking up at the alpha's bright intelligent eyes. He arched feeling warm breath on his skin.  
  
“James”  
  
“That's it doll, let it all go. I've got you sweetheart, you trust me don't cha?”   
  
The omega felt his mind begin to swim “Yes alpha, yes...please.”  This felt different than heat, he was warm but not fevered, his skin over-sensitive but not painful. It was like his body was vibrating with nothing more than the prompting of this man's word.  He wanted, so badly Loki wanted. Unlike he'd ever felt.   
  


Barnes smiled and ran his battle calloused hands over his omegas taught belly, avoiding the touched that Loki so desperately craved. He wanted to draw this out, make it everything his love had dreamed of and more. The soldier wanted to watch his omega come undone over and over until daybreak; he wanted to take away any and all doubts Loki may have. To show the fallen prince that he was worth every bit of love he had to give.   
  
Every touch was measured and full of purpose. The sheets tangle beneath them as Loki writhed and tangled his hands in his alphas hair. Arching and whining, begging both for more and no more as his over sensitive body trembled. His highs shaking and heels digging into the alphas back as that clever man did things that Loki thought no alpha on Asgard would have done willingly.   
  
James licked his lips and placed a kiss on his omega's inner thigh. “Ya taste so good babe. Look at'cha, ya want it so bad.”   
  
That smug bastard. Loki wanted to have some witty retort but he had already begun to lose all sense of time and direction, it was like James was everywhere all at once. The pleasure mounted and blinded but it still wasn't enough. “I need you, James dear gods!”  
  
The alpha chuckled delivering on last teasing lick, the taste of his omega still lingering. “Roll over for me baby, just like that.” Barnes felt the burn in his belly watching as the omega turned on his stomach, back dappled with sweat from the past hours of slow teasing.   
  
“You're a wicked man James Barnes.” Loki moaned feeling his Alpha's weight settle against his back. He pushed his hips back trying to tempt the brunette’s thick member to find its proper home.   
  
James smiled against his loves smooth shoulder, “You like it.”   
  
Feeling James inside him for the first time wasn't exactly different than what Loki had been expecting. In truth there had been a bit of fear that as soon as they were intimate the act would bring up unwanted memories. It didn't. This wasn't 'taking' or 'owning'. This was a sense of oneness. Feeling James' breath against his throat and the motion of his compact muscular form pressing deeper and deeper.  He wanted more.   
  
This place became a realm all it's own where time felt like it stood still as the pair moved together. A place where it was impossible to distinguish where one began and another ended.   
  
Soon the candles melted and snuffed themselves out, bathing the room in darkness. Loki felt his world tumble as James rolled and pulled him on top. 

The ravenette smirked and saddled his mortal. “You humans are such inventive creatures-Ah!” he quipped easing back down on his alphas turgid flesh.  Anticipation mounting as he began to ride his mate. Something in the omegas hindbrain purred with need to be breed. Wonder if even outside of his foolish heat a little flame of life could find a way? Loki dashed the notion immediately, no, James may love him and accept his form – but birthing a half-breed with the Jotun runt? Somehow, Loki thought not.   
  
“Get out of there babe.”   
  
Loki looked down as his musing shattered. “What?”  
  
James wrapped a hand around the omegas flagging member and stroked out a whimper. “Out of your head. Ya here with me got it? Right here doll.” Rolling his hips up to emphasize, the alphas half-swollen knot taking the added push to gain entrance.   
  
“Yes. By the nine yes…” Loki groaned, pitching forward to brace his hands on the alpha's chest, bucking into the slick palm wrapped around his length. 

* * *

  
They were so close, heartbeat-to-heartbeat, lips to lips. Tangled up and holding on like the world was about to end. Feeling the sharp bloom of pain for the alphas teeth on his neck and flood of seed in his belly, Loki's vision drew down to a pinpoint of light. All the sound muted, he shuddered and forgot how to breathe. He never knew it would be like this, like dying and being born at the same time.   
  
“Loki, come on baby. Say something doll, let me know your with me.”   
  
He blinked away the haze and looked to his alpha; he could feel the concern like a tingle over his synapses. The unspoken, 'please be okay, please be happy.', “I’m fine my love...I'm more than fine.”  
  
James smiled and rolled them on there sides. Nosing and kissing at the freshly marked gland on his omega's throat. Loki's scent was already beginning to mingle with his own. Barnes felt a deep pride in that, now everyone would know the ravenette was his. There was no question on which Loki's alpha was.    
  
“Go to sleep doll, I got you.”


	29. Chapter 26: Turning the page

James knew he would have to go home eventually. That didn't make going back any easier.   
  
The feeling of leaving Loki on Asgard, felt worse than losing his arm. It felt like having his heart torn out as soon as he and Thor touched down on the roof of Avengers Tower.  
  
Barnes had to return to the tower alone, despite having spoken Loki about making the journey.  He knew why the omega was reluctant to go anywhere near New York.   
  
Even so, it was difficult for the alpha without his mate at his side. Even more so, knowing that for everything his omega had done- that as the Winter Soldier he had commit even worse sins. The only difference that separated them was a mask. No one knew who the solider truly was. The public had seen grainy images from a distance and shaky cell phone footage of the street fight in Washington. Steve's pack made sure to keep Barnes' name out of the papers.    
  
Steve in his infinite protective nature. Yet there was no one to do the same for Loki.  
  
The world still believed that James Buchanan Barnes died during the war, died a hero. Maybe that was true.   
  
James used to think that the best part of him had died back then. That the only thing left was hydra's Asset. Things changed on Asgard, who would have thought he would feel the most at home on an alien planet?   
  
When Bucky learned about Steve and Tony, name Stark sent a cold throb through his heart, how could he ever face that man? Then Thor relayed that Steve was expecting. An image of the blonde heavy with child formed in James’ mind, it was distorted with memories of how Rogers used to be. All knees, elbows and grit. He imagined that slip of boy’s little frame sitting on the small bed in the tenement apartment, legs folded and arms around a heavy belly.  It hurt to think of that because he knew that wasn’t Steve.  Those images were just false memories and wishes he had conjured for himself out of comfort. Perhaps as his time as the winter solider it was thoughts like those that kept him warm at night.   
  
No, he knew Steve was likely in that gilded tower with Stark, happy…breed with the billionaire’s pups. The flash of Howard’s face in his mind made him ache, Howard used to eye Steve too. He wondered if the younger Stark had those same longing dark eyes, if the inventor touched Steve softly and spoke pretty, educated words in hushed tones.  That always led to darker thoughts of Marie Stark, the omega staring up at him and begging for her life.   
  
Somewhere in that awkward limbo of past and present he began to look at the one person who seemed to understand so keenly what it was like to have your head shaken and stirred. To become something so twisted you can’t even recognize yourself, to feel like it’s too late to be anything but the beast you’ve been molded to be.  
  
He never thought he’d look at anyone the way he used to look at Steve, but then there was this smart-ass omega with all that sass and grace. All those cutting remarks that hid so much. He saw the pain they shared and knew that Loki had demons too.    
  
Loki gave him back his purpose.   
  
James knew that the others might not understand what he saw in Loki, he just hoped Steve did. That if one person could understand; it would be his best friend. 

* * *

  
“Hey punk.”  
  
Steve looked up from his book and smiled,” Well, looks like Stupid finally decided to come back.” The omega started to get up but James motioned for him to stay seated.   
  
“Yeah yeah, keep your round ass down.” he said, ruffling Steve’s hair with his flesh hand, the other was still missing.  “Damn, you are big.”   
  
Steve huffed and batted the hand away, “Gee thanks Buck, its twins so I have an excuse.”  
  
“Oh that’s a relief; here I thought this rich life had you sitting on your ass eating bon bons all day.” Barnes grinned and took a seat across from his friend, sure there was tension, there may always be but for now. They could ease back into this playful banter. Surprisingly it didn’t hurt as he thought it would to be so close to Steve like this. That was good because he didn’t want it to; he wanted to know that he made the right choice and right now…looking at Steve smile - glowing. He knew he had. What he felt for Steve right now was different. Not an ounce of jealousy raised its head. He was just happy for his friend.  
  
“Jerk” Steve laughed, a hand unconsciously settling on his swollen abdomen. “I’m glad to see you doing so well, really glad Buck.”  
  
The brunette nodded, “Yeah, it’s…been hard, not gonna lie about that.  It’s been a bitter bitch sometimes but I’m makin it work. I may not ever be the guy I was but I think I’m startin to like the guy I am.”   
  
There was that smile of Steve’s, that big, crooked, almost childish smile. “I hear someone one else likes him too, and you used to accuse me of running into trouble.”   
  
“Eh...shut up ya mook.” he joked slouching comfortably in his chair. Barnes knew this would come up sooner rather than later, “he’s not like he was, not that I know about then but, I know what Thor said, I’ve seen some of the footage. That’s not him anymore.”   
  
“Yeah, we know. The pack I mean, we all talked about it, about Loki. Tony …I think he would of agreed if I pushed it more, he’s not forgotten about what happened but he’s not the kind to hold grudges…”Steve quietly admitted.  
  
“Even against me?”   
  
James could tell by the way Steve couldn't meet his eyes that the omega knew what he was referring to.   
  
“He knows, I told him after… we haven’t talked about it a lot cause…well he’s a lot like Howard I guess in that respect. He just kind of shrugs and makes jokes then gets a drink.  I know he doesn’t blame you or hate you. I’m not sayin the two of ya are gonna watch the game together and shoot the bull- but he wouldn’t punch you in the face at this point.”  
  
“Kinda wish he would, I’d know where to go from there ya know?”  
  
“I could hit ya instead?”  
  
The alpha laughed loud and long, “Oh yeah, I get my ass beat by a pregnant omega. That’s justice right?”  
  
Steve shook his head and shared the laugh, “hey now, I could still take you.”  
  
The two of them fell into easy conversation, James skirted what the treatments on Asgard consisted of, and Steve didn’t push. They talked about the past. Barnes’ memory was patchy in spots but it was getting there, it felt good to reminisce with someone.   
  
“Steve, are ya happy?” He had to ask because at the end of the day that's what really meant the most. He wanted that for Steve.  
  
“Yeah I am, are you?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“That’s alright then isn’t it?” Steve asked, rubbing his stomach.  
  
“Yeah, it is.” 

* * *

  
Loki wasn't waiting for him when he returned. If James was honest, he was a little disappointed. It wasn't like he thought there was going to be yellow ribbons around oak trees and a ticker tape parade. Seeing the omega standing there would have been nice though. Long elegant arms to wrap around him and soft lips against his jaw. Yeah, a guy could get used to that.   
  
However, all Barnes had waiting for him was Asgard's faithful sentinel Hiemdall and the vast golden kingdom, shining in all its lonely glory.  
  
 Thor walked up behind him with a hard slap on the back, “Tis good to be home Brother. Shall I see you in the warrior’s hall? I am sure that the other are awaiting tale of the journey. Not to mention all of the good I have brought in our return.” The large alpha grinned holding up a bag of various snacks and such. Even an ' I heart NY' shirt lay in the mangled mess of Pringles cans and bags of candy.   
  
“No thanks think I'll go see what Loki's up to.”   
  
Surprisingly the other man was not that upset about the declined offer. Clearly, Thor was happy enough to head off with his bad of Midgardian swag and celebrate his own homecoming. Go figure.   
  
  
The walk through Asgard's halls was different than it had been when Barnes first came here so many months ago. Days when he could not even sleep with out a guard standing outside his door. Eyes following his every moved with a measure of distrust. James had wondered in those first days if it really wouldn't have been better to let Shield have him. At least then, he would be somewhere familiar. Then...was anything familiar anymore?   
  
Somehow this place had become familiar, it became home in an odd sense of the word. The way a college student may feel at ease in a dormitory or a traveler in an old homey inn after a weeklong stay. He was a comfortable visitor.   
  
James had come to know his way down these well traveled halls, he didn't even have to think as he had in those early days, or be guided along by gold clad sentry. Now he walked alone taking each turn deeper and deeper into the palace. Coming up to a familiar set of steps that led up to a heavy wooden door. Beyond that door a long hall that was lined with columns and shuttered windows. Normally in the day, the windows were open letting in the glowing light and fragrant breeze from the palace gardens. Today the windows were locked up tight. Not even the candle sconces were lit along the west wall.   
  
He hesitated at the door. Contemplating knocking but then thought better of it when there was a tinge of grief over his bond. He hadn't been able to feel the bond with on earth; it was strange and a bit worrying to feel so disconnected. Now it felt as though the connection with his omega was beginning to wake up from disuse. Bathing his senses in a sour ache.   
  
Opening the door the air felt heavy and ill, his mind flashing a faded image of a sick bed and a woman wasting away in front of a young man. ...Mrs. Rogers.... His brain whispered.   
  
“Loki, where are you doll?”  
  
The silence offered him a pitiable little mewls. Duchess scampering from the bedroom into the parlor to greet him. She whines and nudged his legs with her head. The kit had had a growth spurt it seemed, she arched and stretched her body, James didn't even have to lean over as she placed her paws on his thigh. She was about the size of medium breed dog. “Hey, where's ma at huh?”   
  
Duchess hoped down and made an annoyed little sounding looking back at the bedroom. Clearly, the kit hadn't enjoyed being forgotten either…  
  
“Alright, I'll handle this, go on.” he said patting her flank and heading into the bedroom.   
  
A Loki shaped lump lay on the bed. Mildly worrying at how still the long figure looked all curled up like that.   
  
James tugged off his boots silently and pulled off the over bearing garments until he was bare-chested and down to his leathers. Walking as quietly as he could to sit on the bedside and card his fingers through the sleeping omegas hair. Loki did not look well, it was clear the separation and (even such a brief one) had been difficult on his mate. “Hey honey, I'm home.”   
  
Green eyes fluttered open slowly. “James?”  
  
 The poor dear sounded sluggish and still under the tug of sleep. Though Barnes could sense there was more to it that fatigue. Something darker that wrapped around Loki's clever mind and threaten to drag it down into a nightmare. Clutches that never seemed far away.   
  
“Yeah sweetheart.”  
  
Loki struggle to sit up only to be gently pushed back and crowded by the alpha on top of him. The comforting scent surrounding him and drowning away the sadness that had sunk into his bones.   
  
“I thought…” Loki didn't want to finish the statement because it escaped his parched lips sounding far too weak.   
  
He didn't have to finish because James knew. The alpha pressed down on him and slotted his muscular form between his slender thighs. “I'd never leave you doll. Even if they locked me up and took my other arm I’d fight anyone to get to you. Ya understand? Ain't anything out there I want more than you, so get that outta your head.”  
  
Loki felt foolish for doubting but it had been so shocking to feel that sudden emptiness when the brilliant light of the bifrost took the alpha away. It was like forgetting how to breathe. Eir had given him something to help him sleep saying the discomfort was because the bond was so new. The old healer had frowned and said that the alpha should have put off the trip or that Loki should have joined him.   
  
“I can never go there, and you won't want to remain trapped here.”   
  
“babe, we'll figure it out ok. Stevie said the others would understand. Just give'em time ok. We don't have to decide now but I promise, I'll be by your side.”  
  
For once, Loki had a promise he could believe in.  
 


	30. Epilogue : Days unwritten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that it has been so long since I have updated. It's been a difficult few months for me suffering with depression. More notes at the end of this chapter.

Time changes many things, it cools tempers, grows bonds, it shapes lives and begins new ones. Time has an amazing quality to heal and build bridges even when it appears impossible. With a little time, and a lot of understanding people can surprise each other.  
  
This was true on earth more so than Asgard, back in the shining realm were one could live for thousands of years, time drug on and even the oldest of slights remained fresh for centuries. Battles raged for decades and hate could fester for a millennia. Perhaps that was what gave humans the edge over such god like beings. Despite how fragile our lives may be, we have a great capacities to forgive. Because the thought of wasting so much precious time brooding over old hurts- is offensive to human nature.  
  
It was that that in-site into the mind of mortals that made leaving Asgard behind not that difficult, Loki could honestly say rarely missed the golden kingdom. The fallen prince certainly did not miss the annoyance of court or the judgmental eyes of the Aesir. Loki would not think fondly of the days spent alone in his youth or the ones led along by chains. Nor would he shed a tear in saying goodbye to the fellows of his brother who never really liked or trusted him. There was however an exception to this – Frigga.  
  
She was the hardest part of leaving. The one person who stood by his side without fail, the mother that chose to be his. When all other backs turned on him, when all the pain had piled on his shoulders, it was her arms that cradled him as they had for so many years. Loki felt remorse for the time he spent resenting her for the part she played in Odin's deception. Looking back he wondered what he would have done in her shoes. The God of Lies wondered if her withheld truth hadn't been a kindness.  
  
The day they left he felt like a child, face buried in her neck taking in her comforting scent as she spoke softly. Telling him how proud she was and how she knew, always knew that he was good, because he was hers. She told him this was not goodbye, because nothing could truly keep her away from her children. Perhaps one day, he too would understand that.  
  
 Of course, the Queen of Asgard had no problem visiting regularly. She quite liked the time away from the kingdom and was fond of the mortals her sons called friends. She was also taken with the odd fashions of Midgardian women. When the Queen would come, she would always spend time alone with her younger son. She knew Thor had always been much more his father’s son. Alpha's tended to pull away from their mothers.  
  
With Loki she could indulge more, not that she would ever point this out to her proud little omega. Instead she would smiled and enjoy the lengthy conversations they had about his life and hers. These quiet moments when Loki felt as he had as a little child – soaking up all of his mother attention. Loki grew to cherish these visits like sips of nectar that first year away. Her friendly face as respite from the troubles still lingering in his mind.  
  
With time she would taper off these visits, she could see him settling into this life and wanted him to have the space to flourish away from her.

* * *

  
  
Another surprise came with their return to Midgard.  
  
 Loki and James were both astonished when Stark offered the pair any home of their choice. Although some may argue, Steve had a lot more to do with this than the omega admitted to. James could tell by how Stark seemed almost reluctant to offer assistance but not outright refusing. Part of the soldier wanted to decline but he knew Loki would not do well living in the shield offered barracks.  
  
The omega had far too many enemies among the organization and leaving his mate behind was not an option. Even if it was now common knowledge, that Loki's role in the invasion was that of a puppet. This was a cold comfort to the agents who lost lover, friends, and family. No one could blame their impassioned anger towards the ravenette. Grief is a powerful motivator.  
  
 James was sure that if they remained in such close quarters if wasn't a matter of 'if', but 'when' Loki would be attacked. That had been too great a gamble for the alpha to take. Even if the omega had been given back a portion of his Siedr on their return and could defend himself. Barnes knew that if there was a standoff between Loki and shield agents – it would be all the ammunition that Director Fury would need to have the omega remanded to a containment cell in Shields prisons.    
  
Therefore, Barnes accepted the act of goodwill, for Loki and maybe a little bit for Steve as well. Maybe on some part he also couldn't tell the son of the people he killed that he'd rather live in a shady motel than take the gift. That last one weighed a bit more than the rest because James could still see it in Tony's eyes. A look of not quite anger but something close, the kind of rage that wrestles hand-to-hand with logic and you never know if the primal part of a man’s brain might just triumph over all that civility that they teach now ‘a days.  Again – who could blame him?  
  
They chose a place far away from the sound and lights of the city, a cabin in the woods just a few miles away from the Avengers training center. It gave them enough room and privacy, not to mention safety, considering duchess' increase in size- living in the city was out of the question right from the start because of their unusual pet. Moreover, Loki had no intention of socializing with the avengers, no matter how accepting they appeared to become over the years. Trusting people was simply too difficult, because trust opens you up to be hurt.

* * *

  
  
Other changes came with their new life, such as newfound livelihoods.  
  
James took a position at Shield and occasionally worked with the Avengers on missions. Loki could tell that it did the Alpha good to find himself a just cause to fight for. He vaguely recalled the Widows words about 'wiping the red from her ledger.'  This gave James a purpose, a way to be the soldier he once was and make up for the weapon he had been made to be.  
  
A side effect had been the Avengers presence in their lives, Loki had resisted nearly all attempts with them and yet somehow Steve Rogers had managed to endear himself to the mage. Maybe it was simply the fact that the omega did not bow to his Alpha the way so many other did. Or perhaps it was because Loki could trust that the Captain would do anything to make sure that James returned home safely.  
  
Maria Hill did approach Loki about becoming a consultant for Shield, stating that there had been many occasions were something of an extraterrestrial or magical nature had come across their radar. That someone with his talents could become a valued member of Shields team. She tried to clench the deal by insinuating that with time he could even become an Avenger. How wrong she was to believe that would sweeten the pot.  
  
Loki declined.    
  
No one was under the impression that he was a hero or even wanted to be, nor was he jumping at the chance to be Shield's pet.  
  
That wasn't to say Loki wasn't above having a career, quite the contrary. It simply took a different kind of offer.

* * *

  
  
Loki was alone in the cabin, reading by the large picture window overlooking the lake. The water was still like glass, reflecting what little bit of sky filtered through the slow rolling morning fog… Truthfully, he was only half paying attention and had probably read the same sentence at least three times now. That's what happens when your mind is too focused on other things, like what a horrible mate you are.  
  
The morning hadn't been an easy one, James left on a mission and they had an unhappy parting. Arguments were something Loki never took any joy in, even when he did manage to have the last word.  
  
They had been here for barely a year and Loki could tell that James was longing for more than just this home and the two of them. The mage could see it in his mortals eyes every time they saw the Stark-Rogers brood. Little Peter and Wendy were undeniably adorable little pups.  Peter, oddly enough, favored his 'uncle Loki', which had been a pleasant little surprise, both because Loki genuinely liked the child and it annoyed the pups Alpha to no end. Watching Tony Stark's face twist up was like every holiday in one. At least for Loki anyway.  
  
Unfortunately this lead to a rather uncomfortable discussion to which Loki had all but been forced to admit why he had suppressed his heats since having his magic returned.  
  
James did not share the fear of “half -frost-giants” as his omega did. Stating plainly that he would love his children no matter how they looked because at the end of the day they would be half of him too.  
  
Loki hated having arguments like this with his alpha. When the man would have to leave and there was no way to talk thing through with a clear hear. All it did was lever things unresolved. He would have acquiesced come morning; unfortunately, James had left early without as much as a goodbye. Which spoke volumes to how angry the man actually was.  
  
Therefore, the omega was left with only his thoughts for company, not knowing when or...if, his mate would return. Taking on a shallow comfort in the fact that he could still feel the ebb and flow of their bond.  
     
Loki sighed and looked out onto the deck where duchess was laying, soaking up the warmth from the dark wood. Suddenly, her head rose and the Furulve growled softly.  Someone must be coming he thought. She was very protective of their home and tended to get annoyed with unexpected visitors.  
     
Setting his book aside Loki walked out onto the porch, sure enough Duchess had made her way down the deck and around the house to his side. “It's alright,” He assured petting her large head that bumped into his thigh. Somehow, he didn't think having an intergalactic species maul a passerby would bode well.  
  
A silver car was indeed pulling up the long gravel driveway. It stopped and the driver side door opened, however, the driver did not step out. This driver rolled. On the other hand, perhaps glide was a better term for the smooth motion of the wheel chair up the walkway.  
  
Loki walked down the stairs to meet the man, sensing...something very different about him.  
  
“Mr. Barnes, How good it is to finally meet you.” The man said  
  
Loki raised a brow, “and you are?”  
  
“My name is Charles Xavier and I've come to offer you a job,”  
  
The job was working at a school, Loki the silver tongue...educator, it didn't seem possible. Yet this man, the Professor, said that he could see something in him.  
  
“There are children in this world who are born different, mutants. Some of them have special abilities, physical, mental or ...in some case what appears to be magical. These children are often seen as outcasts by society, even their own families. Labeled as monsters because of what they can do or how they appear. We offer them a place to call home and learn how to control their abilities, not only for their protection – but to protect others.”  
  
Loki poured a cup of tea for his guest, “What reason do you think I would be so inclined to help them, haven't you heard of me Professor?”  
  
“Yes I have, Loki of Asgard, brother of Thor. Invader of New York.” Charles said, “Although I think there is much more to you than all of that.”  
  
“Most would call me a villain.”  
  
“No, I've met Villains Loki. They're stories are not always so cut and dry, in fact,  I have found that the definition line between a good man and a bad man- is what he does with his pain. As for as the title of evil. You I don't think fit that bill anymore, or perhaps I am simply not most people.”  
  
It was interesting, something out of the hands of Shield and the Avengers, and yet... nothing as mundane as having to pretend to be human. He would be doing something more, something exceptional that would use his skill to the fullest.  
  
Perhaps the most drawing aspect was that he would be needed. That he too could clean the red from his ledger.  
  
“When do I start?”

* * *

  
     
 Working with the children at the school seemed to change things for Loki. He saw kids who had been abandoned by their families and society because they were different. Their stories resonated with him and he wanted to assist them and guide them if he could. More than that, he saw that these children could never be monsters.  
  
They were just kids; they laughed, smiled, cried, and dreamed. Some of them were so bright and gifted that he felt an incredible sense of pride to be involved with helping them.  
  
He changed because of them.  
  
Time was a beautiful thing.  
  
“I'm ready, if you still...if you want to…” Loki began one night as he stood at the sink washing dishes and James dried. It was ordinary and domestic, the kind of thing he could have easily accomplished by snapping his fingers. Yet there was something rewarding about doing diminutive tasks like this.  
  
James paused setting own one of the wine glasses. He didn't say anything right away; the alpha quietly molded himself to his omegas back and wrapped his arms around the taller man’s slender waste. “You know I do. I can't think of anything better than having a family with you.”  
  
That was over a year ago.  
  
Of course he didn't expect success on the first try but.....staring down at another negative test still felt like a failure.  
  
“Loki you almost ready in there doll?” James called from outside of the bathroom. They were supposed to go to the tower today to pick up Peter and Wendy.  
  
“Yes. Yes of Course, I'll be right out.” He hid the disappointment well.  
  
Loki had become so good at hiding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank you all for joining me on this journey. I have loved writing this pairing and developing their relationship bit by bit, as well as the Stony pairing in the previous book. I feel like this isn't quite over and there is at least one more tale to tell with both of these couples. I hope, that you will join me on book 3. “You’re gonna be ok” which will be posted the same day as this epilogue


End file.
